


Domestic Affairs

by perictione (leclairage)



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Quintessons - Freeform, Roommates, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Uneasy Allies, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2019-07-03 04:30:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 45,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15811407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leclairage/pseuds/perictione
Summary: Megatron hadn’t considered the possibility that sharing a berthroom with Optimus Prime would be necessary to the war effort.





	1. Chapter 1

Megatron hadn’t spent an hour alone in his own habsuite _once_ in the past two weeks. The blasted Prime was always there. And it had been half his own idea, damn it all to the Pit.

Within weeks of Autobot High Command’s arrival on the _Nemesis,_ Megatron had insisted on sharing a duty shift with Optimus Prime—his ‘co-leader.’ “Alliance or no alliance, I won’t have you making decisions for the Decepticons without my oversight, Prime!” he’d said.

Megatron hadn’t considered the possibility that sharing a berthroom with Optimus Prime would be necessary to the war effort. Now he had no privacy left whatsoever.

Megatron hadn’t been _wrong,_ of course. He’d been right! The co-leaders sharing a duty shift kept the ~~Decepticon Empire~~ Combined Cybertronian Fleet running smoothly. He and the Prime could argue over orders and strategy on the spot instead of _ex post facto,_ and with most of both factions’ senior staff consolidated on the flagship, they were finally making up ground against the Quintessons.

According to Ultra Magnus, whose presence in senior staff meetings had been unexpectedly entertaining to Megatron, the shift change had “improved agility in command decision making” and “elevated morale.” Presumably because the screaming matches had moved off the bridge and into their (now shared) office. The Autobot-Decepticon alliance had put a halt to the parade of crushing defeats in the Quintesson war, but actual cooperation was an animal of a different kind. As Magnus had explained at extraordinary length, it involved a lot of bureaucracy.

He did miss interrupting the Prime’s recharge to complain (as loudly as possible) about the Prime’s commands from back during beta shift. There had never been anything quite so fun as slagging off Optimus Prime. Sometimes the exasperated Prime gave in just a bit more easily to Megatron’s demands—“Just let me go back to recharge, Megatron”—and other times he’d storm up to the bridge, dig his heels in, and refuse compromise altogether. But the fun of teasing Optimus Prime wasn’t enough to convince Megatron to give him a free hand with the Decepticon forces for eight hours out of the day. Sharing a duty shift had been the right decision. Plus, Ultra Magnus had a pleasant dampening effect on Starscream now that they were both on beta shift.

The Quints had gotten in the way of all the command harmony, of course. The _Nemesis_ had been ambushed outside of the Nix Cluster, and victory had been paid for with the crippling of the capital ship. They’d limped, with a last gasp of the hyperdrive, into the security of a nearby nebula, where the ship had remained since. The loss of hull containment had been the least of the damage, but it had the greatest effect on day to day function.

Everyone had to share space now. _Everyone._

Soundwave had broken the news to him about berth size and available real estate and the Prime. Megatron hadn’t been pleased, but he hadn’t been genuinely worried either—what was one more deprivation for the sake of the survival of their species—but he hadn't realized that their identical shift schedules meant that he would have no privacy _at all._

On balance, living with Optimus Prime was… not unpleasant. It was even nice. Megatron hadn’t shared a space like this in an extremely long time, and he had forgotten that it could be nice. Sharing morning energon with another mechanism, hearing the Prime’s soft vents across the room as he falls into recharge—and Megatron knew where the Prime was at almost every moment. He was sleeping better than he had in years.

But sixteen days in and _frustrated,_ Megatron had become keenly aware of the lack of privacy. He couldn’t use the washracks without getting a curious look from the Prime, much less find an opportunity to self-service.

Megatron had had enough.

During that day’s morning briefing, Megatron had told Optimus that he would be supervising an inspection of the _Nemesis_ science labs. It hadn’t been a lie... Shockwave wasn’t on the ship, but Starscream more than deserved the occasional suspicious optic running over his work. Preferably when he was least expecting it. And after all, Megatron had only _implied_ that was all he would be doing until the joint staff meeting. As expected, it had only taken two hours to go over Starscream’s projects. Unexpectedly, only three of them were obviously treasonous. Megatron attributed that to Starscream’s stress from working with Ultra Magnus.

He had another two hours left before the staff meeting at mid-shift. More than enough time.

At first, Megatron had dismissed trying this during a duty shift out of hand. Disappearing from the command deck while Optimus Prime stayed behind, dutifully working through their paperwork? No. But of their three shifts each day, on the off shift they were both in berth, recharging, and during the on shift, which was supposed to be leisure time, Optimus might come back to the hab at any moment. Sometimes the Prime would continue working from their foyer console. Several times, the Prime attended whatever bizarre Autobot bonding ritual they’d been conducting in the rec room that week. But he’d always be in and out of the habsuite at unpredictable intervals.

He could always have put Soundwave on watch to ensure his privacy. He already had, after a fashion: Soundwave had been reporting Optimus’s location and activities to him every hour since the Prime’s arrival on the _Nemesis_. In that respect, Optimus moving in had been a relief. Now Megatron could simply keep an eye on the Prime in person, so eventually he’d cancelled those hourly reports. But Megatron’s third-in-command had a way of slowly turning his head and staring judgmentally whenever Megatron put Soundwave’s talent for espionage to use for something obviously sybaritic.

And constant status updates from Soundwave would have made the whole exercise... more difficult. Even before Optimus moved in, Soundwave had been growing displeased with his assignment, but afterwards he started reporting things like "the Prime: in recharge next to Lord Megatron. Threat level: 0” and “the Prime: dispensing morning energon for Lord Megatron. Threat level: 2. Soundwave: should call for backup?”

Megatron did not want to listen to his TIC’s passive-aggressive criticism while he tried to self-service.

In theory, he could use the washracks. Megatron had his own, attached to the suite. That used to be his habit, even. He wouldn’t be able to take his time, but he could take care of the flood of excess charge, knowing the Prime was just outside, then walk boldly back into the berthroom, where Optimus would be looking at him and waiting for his turn in the washracks, and hope Optimus somehow wouldn’t notice the lingering smell of ozone.

But the idea of Optimus even suspecting—no. No no. That twisted Megatron’s spark into knots. So he was reduced to this. Sneaking into his own hab during his duty shift to indulge himself. Served him right for getting into the weak habit of self-servicing regularly. What a pathetic problem to have.

He’d have born the deprivation more stoically, without a doubt, if it weren’t for how the universe was conspiring to keep him as charged up as a high voltage capacitor.

The last time he’d been able to release his charge had been in the frantic aftermath of the most recent battle with the Quintessons, the one that had left their ship limping into a nebula to hide. It had been half disaster, half victory, and eighteen hours after the Quintesson ship went up in flames he’d found himself in those private washracks (still just _his_ private washracks), cleaning the gore off his plating at last, stroking his spike viciously, and trying too hard not to think about how Optimus had lifted him bodily out of the way of a cannon blast as they pushed back a Quint boarding party.

Forty-two hours without recharge later the Constructicons had been maneuvering a second heavy-frame berth into his habsuite.

With Optimus safely at work in their office on the bridge level, he would have an hour and a half of blessed privacy alone in the hab. Megatron had locked the door and Optimus was the only other mech with the code. Well, Soundwave probably had it, but no matter. Megatron was confident he wouldn’t be disturbed. During his shift, Optimus resolutely did not come back to his—their—hab, ever. The diligence had something to do with Prime’s hideous martyr complex, no doubt. Or maybe it was the effect of prolonged exposure to Ultra Magnus.

Megatron turned the berthroom lights down almost all the way, leaving him nearly in the dark. He had to turn sideways to get between the two berths filling most of the room. They were close enough that he could lay on one and reach over to touch the other. He’d stubbornly kept a few of his own personal items on display—he didn’t want to make way for the Prime any more than was necessary—but most truly important items had been stored away.

Contemplating the room, Megatron thought perversely of self-servicing in Optimus’s berth rather than his own—a sweet, petty bit of revenge—but he cut off the processor string before the idea could develop. He would _not_ think about his thrice-damned ‘living companion,’ not for this.

Megatron lay down on his berth and stroked his hands down his frame.

He might not be able to control his frame’s needs, but he would control his processor. He would not think about the Prime.

The alliance had ruined all his favorite fantasies about Optimus, anyway.

 

* * *

 

Before this alliance, wanting Optimus had been a fun, defiant game.

It was Megatron’s very favorite blasphemy. Foolish, but at least consonant with who he was, with his goals, his purpose. The cause. The kind of desire that was just for playing with, not for acting on.

Now, ‘wanting Optimus’ meant ‘being betrayed by his own frame’ and ‘losing his slagging processor.’

Megatron’s fantasies about interfacing with Optimus used to have a lot in common with his fantasies about defeating him. Victory, domination, the Prime admitting that Megatron had won at last, possibly on the battlefield covered in each other’s energon… Interfacing with the Prime would have been a blasphemy, on Old Cybertron, which just made the daydreams sweeter. The long dead senators and priests and all the architects of Autobot oppression would have put out his optics if they knew what he thought about their pure, shining archetype, the Prime.

_This self-righteous, do-gooder Prime, he thinks he’s so much better than some filthy miner from the pits, but I’ll show him, he’ll be begging for my spike..._

The last time Megatron had tried to indulge this particular vice, Optimus and Autobot High Command had only been on board the _Nemesis_ for a month, and Megatron had the wild luxury of his own habsuite. He’d gotten charged up in a particularly strident ‘discussion’ among the Autobot and Decepticon command staff.

He really hadn’t been getting enough sleep at the time.

Megatron had marched back to his hab, (only his hab, how he missed that), growling at several unsuspecting subordinates along the way, and decided there was no harm in indulging himself. Just the same old idle game. It was a bit unusual, even disturbing, that he wasn’t trying it out of boredom, but because Optimus’s physical presence had... affected him.

Nevertheless, once he was alone, Megatron had let his imagination spin up a fantasy—nothing fancy, just the Prime’s aft in the air, with some desperate, embarrassed begging thrown in for good measure.

But it hadn’t worked.

He had built up plenty of charge, and he was stimulating himself just the way he had always liked, getting a nice tight grip just under the head of his spike and thrusting into his fist fast and hard. But his desire didn’t climb, his charge wouldn’t peak.

He’d tried again.

Megatron had thought of the Prime spread open and exposed, so Megatron could take a good long look at the array he’d been imagining for so long, so Megatron could play as he pleased. Megatron could touch and taste and take, and take, and take, and Optimus Prime would love it, he’d be gagging for it, he’d be ashamed of wanting it so much—No. No that hadn’t helped. Something else then.

He had worked through all his best, most circuit-melting material. The Prime, admitting his secret, very un-Autobot-like fetish for labor frames. The Prime, kneeling before him and letting Megatron use his mouth. The Prime, hating how much he enjoyed being touched by a low-caste mech—but that hadn’t felt right either, because he didn’t _want_ that.

None of those fantasies had tipped him over the edge. Eventually, Megatron had had to shove thoughts of the Prime away altogether before he could finally just get off. It was bizarre. He told himself the whole incident was a fluke, and he put it out of his mind.

But it kept happening, and happening, and happening. He’d get charged up _—Optimus Prime_ would get him charged up—but when he went to self-service the ridiculous distraction away, all his best fantasies felt wrong.

It was this damned alliance.

It didn’t feel defiant anymore, imagining the ever-so-pure Prime with a secret perversion for a trashy, low-caste mech. He didn’t feel triumphant, like he had proven once again that he was just as good—better, even, than all those Golden Age Autobots in their high towers.

It wasn’t that the fantasy felt _unrealistic—_ Megatron still suspected that if their interfacing went any way at all, it would be _that way_ , with the Prime giving in to a very un-Prime-like desire for a mech like Megatron, who’d fought his way out of the gutter. But it felt so—disappointing, now.

The fantasies were a reminder that Optimus Prime really never would desire him without some measure of disgust, just like Megatron had always imagined.

He and the Prime weren’t facing each other across a battlefield anymore. They were in the same office, on the same bridge, sharing ideas about command and leadership and tactics, and when they _were_ on the battlefield, they were fighting side by side, back to back, and that came so easy, like they’d been doing it for a thousand years. Like they were equals.

But Megatron had played this game. For all the Prime’s lip service, he would never think Megatron belonged here, in the light.

Megatron had seen Autobot hypocrisy up close and personal, he’d seen the chains and the smelters, and he’d brought their world to its knees for it. The do-gooder Prime, so holy and righteous and sure of himself, had spent the whole war preaching the same tired propaganda, like Megatron might somehow forget what the _Autobot cause_ really meant. He wasn’t about to start now.

Freedom is the right of all sentient beings, his aft.

They were pretty words, but Megatron knew what the Autobots thought about _Decepticon_ freedom. Free Decepticons wouldn’t be _safe._ Wasn’t that what the Senate had decided? They’d dressed it up in pretty language, too. All this slag about the Prime respecting his Decepticons, respecting him, was just that, slag—an act in service of the alliance.

But it was such a sweet, sweet lie.

The lie that the Autobots weren’t out to recreate the Golden Age, the lie that Optimus thought they were equal.

He’d been strategizing side by side with Optimus every day, never trusting him, of course not, but still, still affected, basking in his—his respect, admiring the gentle but immovably stern way he commanded his subordinates, and sharing with the Prime, unspoken, the burning anger and sick despair at the fate awaiting them if they failed. Optimus Prime’s horror over what would become of Cybertron and their people if the Quintessons took hold of them again—that Megatron believed was true, true and not an act. Not all of his Decepticons believed it, and he didn’t blame them. It would make a great trick, getting close to them and then betraying them to the Quints. But the Prime was no fool, and neither were his advisors. He knew the Autobots could never win the war alone.

Sometimes, when he was feeling generous, Megatron wondered if Optimus himself believed the propaganda, believed that ‘freedom for all’ had been the ethos of the Golden Age in more than name. He’d have been raised on it, so why would he have doubted the myth of Autobot righteousness? He was probably _created_ just to become Prime.

Megatron believed in the alliance, but he didn’t believe the pretty words or the performative moral high ground the Prime liked to trot out. He knew what the Prime and his followers really thought about the Decepticons. But Optimus was doing a great job of pretending.

The hope hurt. The hope that the ideology he’d been fighting to eradicate all this time was finally gone for good...but Megatron could still see the cracks in the facade, the rot behind the gilded frame. When he heard out of Optimus Prime’s own mouth those pretty little nonsense words the Senate and the Iacon tower mechs had used to hide him and his people away under the ground, Megatron’s spark twisted and his tanks churned. There was anger there (there was always anger), but there was a wild disappointment now as well. A yearning bitterness, like it was a betrayal.

He wanted something else out of the Prime now. Something… something too treasonous to be thought of.

No, wanting Optimus was not a fun game anymore.  

 

* * *

 

Megatron was stroking circles over his valve panel and stubbornly not thinking about Optimus Prime.

He was going to make this good and he was going to make it last. Megatron wanted that best kind of pleasure that would keep his circuits satisfied longer, and that meant a valve overload. He had the time, and at the rate ship repairs were going, another chance might be difficult to arrange.

He sighed deeply, adjusting himself on the berth, his circuits heating up already from the light touches on his panel. He let his panel open. The cool air brushed against his exposed valve, and he shivered. Oh, this was going to be a treat.

Megatron lightly massaged over the soft lips of his valve, rubbed his protoform gently, then raised his hand, and gave his array a solid _smack._ Choking off a moan, he pressed the flat of his palm against the valve, massaging it a few moments more, and then _smack, smack, smack._ Megatron felt shivers of pleasure wind through his lines.

He pressed three fingers firmly against his valve, rolling his plump anterior node under them, then spread his legs wide apart, opening himself up under his hand and exposing that needy little nub for better access. Megatron aimed another set of slaps at his valve, making sure that one of his fingers was aligned to deliver the force of each slap right on top of his node—first hard and strong, then soft and fast, and then again, _hard_ , and oh, his node was _throbbing,_ and his frame crackled with charge.

He could feel himself lubricating as his valve tightened around nothing. He traced his valve rim with one finger, just getting it wet, and then started drawing slick, aching circles over his node.

It was a bit awkward—he had to bend his knees and spread his legs just a bit more—but he reached his left hand around his left thigh and pressed two fingers into his valve, and oh yes, that was good. That was good—there was a slight burn (it had been so long since he’d done this) but it would pass, the tight ring of his callipers would loosen up. He was stroking around the rim, stretching himself, and pushing up, and gently rocking his fingers inside. He couldn’t manage any depth, but the front of his valve was sensitive and eager and he didn’t need more.

Megatron could barely remember what a deep thrust felt like, not really. It had been so long since he’d had someone he trusted to spike him.

He stroked the sensitive mesh inside in counterpoint with the strokes to his node, and remembered the drag, the friction, the overwhelming fullness of a spike inside him. He pressed harder on his node, and curled his fingers inside his valve, and oh, there it was—there it was. He let go, he just let go, arching into it as the overload swept over him, crackling over his frame and making him shake.

Oh, he had needed this, he thought with a pleased sigh. He was focused on his frame, letting everything else fall out of conscious processing. There was no unwinnable war here, no half-destroyed ship, no impossible personnel challenges, and, most importantly, no Autobots.

Megatron shut his optics, and let himself enjoy. He had a whole hour left, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to [entangledwood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eryn/pseuds/entangledwood) and [RHplus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RHplus/works) for the beta!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Optimus hadn’t been able to complete a full defrag cycle since he had ‘moved in’ with Megatron.

Optimus hadn’t been able to complete a full defrag cycle since he had ‘moved in’ with Megatron. And now, alone in his office, without Megatron around to keep his processor focused as a result of pure stress, all that missing defrag was catching up to him. He’d just read the same memo four times over without understanding it.

Optimus had been getting some sleep, or else he’d have been hardly functional, but it was never for long enough to get to the deep defragmentation of his memory banks. Optimus was startling awake at least once an hour every night. Whenever Megatron so much as twitched in his recharge, Optimus’s battle protocols spun all his systems up to high alert.

And then there was the stress, the constant pressure of everything he did in private having the potential to start a diplomatic incident. He’d adjusted to the meetings, and the fighting side by side, and the running into Megatron in the halls, but when failing to de-escalate an argument about the light level in their berthroom had the potential to reignite the civil war and bring about the demise of their entire species…

To say Optimus was stressed would be an understatement.

Of course, Optimus was thrilled that the truce was holding so well. There was immense joy and relief in not fighting other Cybertronians anymore. Professionally, if the Prime could be allowed to make distinctions between the professional and the personal, he was more content than he had ever been.

The Matrix _did not like_ violence between Cybertronians in the same way that the Matrix _did not like_ sending the Prime into battle. Only, it did not disapprove exactly, either. But there had always been a wrongness to it. Optimus felt like he’d been carrying the weight of Primus’s enormous grief through millennia of war. Now, that weight was gone, and seemed all the heavier for its absence. Now, this fight was just.

Not that Optimus was ‘professionally’ calm as a result. Pseudo-grief—as all of the emotional impressions he received from the Matrix were _pseudo,_ interpreted, indirect, bizarre, immense and not the same as his own—had been replaced by a churning urgency and even fear. That fear had been his reason for desperately pursuing this truce with everything he had, because it was Primus’s fear and not his own. The urgent fear of ancient days.

Still, this fight against the Quintessons was good in a way that the Cybertronian civil war had never been. They fought as a united Cybertron and for that, the Matrix sang.

Nevertheless, personally, Optimus was suffering.

There was no place for him to retreat to, not on a Decepticon ship where even his private quarters were shared with the Slagmaker himself. After he had become Prime, Optimus had accepted a general loss of privacy, but one of the only privileges of his rank that he had enjoyed—had needed—was consistently having a private room.

Optimus wanted to be able to relax, play a video game, or read one of his collection of horrifyingly bad romance novels from old Cybertron. Well, he had tried that last one. It had been so uncomfortable. He’d had to keep surreptitiously adjusting the datapad out of Megatron’s line of sight as Megatron moved around the room, _and_ he’d made the mistake of picking the one about the time-traveling gladiator and the racer frame...

Megatron wasn’t a time traveler, and he didn’t wear sinister but alluring face paint, but the connection still made Optimus twitchy.  

 _Megatron_ didn’t seem to be having any problems, of course.

It was like Optimus’s invasion of his private space hadn’t put Megatron under any stress at all. Optimus was almost insulted.

Of course there was all the arguing. But Optimus suspected that Megatron enjoyed that. Sometimes it seemed like Megatron was trying to provoke him on purpose…

Megatron would _say things_ , sometimes, but he always kept a straight face, so Optimus was never sure if he had intended the implications. In that post-battle staff meeting when they’d decided on this domestic arrangement, Megatron had looked directly at him and opened the topic with “Shall we discuss your berthroom preferences?”

He’d held nonchalant eye contact with a stunned Optimus until Soundwave and Ultra Magnus had explained the lack of space on the ship.

Optimus didn’t know how to respond to that kind of provocation.

As yet, none of Optimus and Megatron’s arguments had escalated into something diplomatically dangerous. There’d been more than enough yelling, and it often devolved into personal attacks, but they hadn’t gotten violent with each other. Megatron would usually run out of steam first, and they’d stare at each other for a while, and start the topic over again. Optimus knew the stakes. Megatron did too.

Integrating the Autobot and Decepticon forces had been a challenge from the beginning.

Their initial ‘trust exercises,’ as Jazz had cheerfully called them, of exchanging small platoons between opposing faction capital ships, had gone well. Both sides adjusted to having a few of their enemies alongside them every day, and the interlopers didn’t have much alternative but to accept the command of officers from the opposing faction. Now, there were combined Autobot and Decepticon command teams on each ship of the line. Prowl had been pushing for that setup from very early on in the alliance, knowing it would provide more long term stability and clear up the confused chain of command.

Moving Autobot and Decepticon High Command onto the _Nemesis_ together was the biggest step forward. The Combined Cybertronian Fleet, such as it was, currently flew divided, scattered across the quadrant. The carrier-class dreadnought _Nemesis_ , designed to house several Seeker squadrons, ought to have been accompanied by one heavy cruiser and two retrofitted corvettes. Unfortunately, the recent Quintesson ambush had separated them from their escort, and left the _Nemesis_ crippled and hiding in the Cone Nebula. The ship’s complement was skewed slightly Decepticon, but with enough Autobots aboard to make Optimus and his command staff feel secure.

Below the officer level, they were still keeping the factions separated when it came to combat units, but for shipboard duties that wasn’t possible, and came with its own set of challenges. They’d had problems with Decepticons refusing to take orders from Autobot officers, and, to Optimus’s shame, _Autobots_ refusing to take orders from _Decepticon_ officers had been an even worse issue. Megatron kept bringing that up…

Pairing up the officers with their cross-faction counterparts for duty shifts had helped considerably. Optimus and Megatron were always on duty at the same time, and the same was true for Starscream and Ultra Magnus, and so on. It was difficult for an Autobot to refuse an order from Megatron when Optimus was standing beside him as he gave it. They spoke with one voice. Unless they were busy yelling at each other.

The forced proximity and ease of access had made tactical decisions flow more easily amongst the joint command staff. Almost daily practice making compromises with Megatron had managed to build rather than destroy trust, much to Optimus’s surprise. Even with all of the yelling, compromise was starting to feel like collaboration.

Paradoxically, Optimus trusted Megatron the most in battle.

It was so easy. It was like they’d been training together their whole lives. And in a way, they had. He wished that would make sleeping next to Megatron easier.

Optimus was proud of the progress they’d made in keeping the crew of the flagship from destroying each other. Giving Ultra Magnus free rein over discipline—even with the Decepticons—had dramatically reduced the interpersonal violence, including between the officers. He had a unique approach that was remarkably effective.

Still, Optimus was now trying to perform this difficult dance in half a ship, since the other half of the _Nemesis_ had lost hull containment. Everyone was on top of everyone else, on duty and off. And they were stuck in a crippled ship with no way out of this nebula until Wheeljack and co. fixed the hyperdrive. It was tense.

On top of that, Optimus had all the minutiae of command to worry about.

 

Optimus hadn’t even been on duty for half a shift, and his mental acuity was already fading. Overseeing the careful integration of the Autobot and Decepticon forces was difficult enough, and the unnecessarily detailed memos from his second-in-command weren’t helping. Today, there were thirteen memos, somehow all on the topic of hallway safety, with two dedicated to “the permissible recreational decibel level in public hallways and thoroughfares”. Optimus hadn’t been able to finish reading any of them.

After three hours of processor-numbing paperwork in his office, Optimus finally admitted defeat and decided that his time before the command staff meeting would be much better spent catching up on recharge.

He had never minded paperwork this much when—well, when his forces were actually seeing action. Regulations about “the permissible recreational decibel level in public hallways and thoroughfares” had more meaning when missing too much recharge could spell injury or death in the next battle.

Of course, Optimus was the one missing recharge now, and it had nothing to do with permissible decibel levels. He could only hope the repairs to the crew quarters would keep pace with Wheeljack’s tinkering in the engine room.

Optimus hesitated in the hallway outside the captain’s habsuite. Their habsuite. A habsuite which should currently be empty. Megatron was supposed to be inspecting the labs for the first half of their shift, and Optimus didn’t think he came back to the hab during duty shifts anyway.

Optimus would have the space to himself, for what would hopefully be an untroubled nap. And even if his ‘roommate’ was home—which he wouldn’t be—then Optimus had simply forgotten a datapad before leaving earlier. He had come back to fetch it. Yes. Right. _Don’t be afraid of your own hab, it’s not an Insecticon hive._ Optimus input his code, heard the telltale chirp of the lock, and walked boldly into the front room.

And… no one was there. Optimus relaxed just a bit, peeking around the desk just to be sure. Ugh, what was he doing, obviously Megatron wasn’t waiting to jump out from under the desk. Megatron wasn’t Rodimus.

At least he knew his living situation could be worse…

Optimus had been jumpy ever since he’d come aboard ship, because at any moment he might meet Megatron unawares. As he had been horrified to discover, Megatron might even come around a corner and _smile at him._

After the long years of civil war, Optimus had learned to feel sick with dread when he saw Megatron smile. Not that this was the smile he knew from the battlefield, not at all. It was polite and slightly awkward and entirely horrible.

But still, Optimus kept a tight hold on his instinctive threat response, so there hadn’t been any unfortunate incidents. Just the discomfort of having to force quit the boot-up sequence for his integrated armament, and the existential horror of it all.

Now, Megatron had started offering a welcoming smile whenever Optimus _came home,_ which was very much worse.

Neither of them had to go from the office straight to the hab at the end of their duty shift, so Optimus often walked into the suite to find Megatron reclining on his berth or seated at the desk in the foyer, seemingly pleased to see him.

Each time it happened, Optimus had to frantically squash a recursive tree in his processor full of contradictory and contraindicated directives. He hadn’t revised his social protocols surrounding domestic situations in the millennium since he’d last shared a living space—he’d never needed to—and all his social protocols were deeply entrenched and many were automated. His last _household_ had been Ariel and Dion and Orion-that-was. The space had been small, and their work hard, but their home had been full of love and protection and comfort.

So even as his battle protocols spun up in a well-trained reaction to ‘Megatron is smiling,’ his processor was queueing up completely inappropriate ways to _reciprocate domestic affection._

If he didn’t cut off the processor threads fast enough, he would actually glitch, resulting in an awkward moment of prolonged, frozen eye contact that Optimus was sure made Megatron think he was a lunatic.

Which he was. His processor was trying to combine ‘embrace in greeting’ and ‘neutralize the threat’ into one action.

Optimus’s coding kept labeling Megatron as a _member of Optimus’s household._ All the arguing they’d been doing was within acceptable parameters for domestic disputes, apparently. Optimus had tried manually editing the label, but it would reset itself within days. Somehow, his coding didn’t think he disliked Megatron enough.

It was almost worse when he didn’t glitch. Once when he was distracted he’d gone so far as to reach out a hand before he realized he was moving to embrace the Scourge of Kaon.

He needed so badly to get to his berth and defrag.

Yes, his berth. He loved his berth. The best thing about moving the Combined Cybertronian Fleet Command to the _Nemesis_ had been the berths. Somehow the Decepticons had held onto, or invested in, quality Cybertronian berths. Until two weeks ago, his recharge had been amazing.

Rolling his shoulders, letting the cables in his neck release tension, Optimus waved a hand and the door to the berthroom opened. Finally, an opportunity to rest without—

Looking inside, Optimus froze.

He—he was—Megatron, his _array—_

Light from the open door spilled over the berth in a lewd spotlight. Megatron’s optics were dark and shuttered. Optimus could barely see his face, the lights in the room were so dim, but oh, he could see everything else. Megatron had spread his strong legs wide, bent at the knees, all that heavy pelvic armor transformed away, and his hands—his hands were on his valve. He was making the smallest noises—deep, choked off rumbles. Megatron’s hips were just, just twitching up to meet the touches, like he couldn’t help it, like he was greedy for sensation. Megatron’s spike was still recessed, but the rest, oh Primus.

His valve lips were the same deep black of his pelvic plating, plump and traced by thin silver lines that dove inside that little opening to meet a circle of glowing biolights. Optimus could just see them when Megatron shifted his fingers inside himself. The lines rippled as Megatron’s valve lips throbbed and tightened around the fingers inside him. His other hand was on his anterior node, pressing over it in tight little circles.

The slick sheen of lubricant decorated everything. Dripping down over the back of Megatron’s fingers, pushing out when he rocked his hand inside, slipping over Megatron’s node—oh, his swollen little node. Optimus could just see it, glowing and white, behind the eager stroking of Megatron’s finger, and—

Optimus realized that this was the kind of situation where he ought to leave the room.

He’d been standing there watching and he—frag, his fans were trying to spin up and he had to stop them because Megatron would hear and—Optimus made a strangled noise, half growl and half the squeal of force-quit cooling fans.

Megatron jerked up, optics bright and wide and staring at Optimus, mouth slack with disbelief.

Optimus said, uncomfortably loud and awkwardly delayed, “Megatron!”

Megatron broke eye contact and rushed to cover himself, pulling his fingers out of his valve with a mortified wince and a _sound_ which Optimus realized was the sound of Megatron’s lubricant spilling out of him, and Optimus couldn’t help but look, away from Megatron’s face to the little puddle on the berth between his thighs, and when he forced his eyes back up he knew that Megatron had seen him _looking—_ and Optimus fled the room.

 

* * *

 

By the time Optimus was out of the hab his cooling fans were roaring and _what was he going to do._ What? What was he going to do. Primus.

Optimus tried not to wonder what Megatron might be doing now, back in their hab, on the berth—but his processor kept reinitializing the subroutine. Had Megatron stopped? Was he letting all that charge bleed off slowly? Would he still be charged up in the staff meeting—oh no, the _meeting—_ but what if he didn’t stop, what if after seeing Optimus he just kept going, kept touching and _rubbing—_ Optimus’s fans gave a pained screech.

Where was he going to go? He couldn’t just stand in the corridor outside his hab with his vents heaving, like, like he was wildly charged up which he _was not._

He was not charged up from watching, from watching _Megatron—_ Megatron who was a member of his household, and, and his coding had tacked on a collection of other labels that he wasn’t even going to consciously acknowledge. He was just going to hard reset them because Megatron was not _his_. Megatron was not his to take and hold and drive to ecstatic—even thinking it was wrong and awful and a perversion—his enemy! Megatron was his enemy! Most of the time. And for all they needed each other, the alliance was fragile—one wrong step could doom their entire species.

The conference room. Yes. He would go there. He would need to be there in an hour anyway, and he would be alone and he could meditate. Or something.

As he determinedly queued up those actions, his speculation module wondered what would happen if Megatron arrived early to the conference room as well. He could just bend Megatron over the table—his speculation module suggested that Megatron’s panels would still be open, naturally—and Optimus could play and touch and then spike Megatron within an inch of his life, and then the rest of their staff would come in and see what a wonderful new avenue of negotiation he had discovered—

Optimus mastered himself with a great effort.

He realized he had slumped against the wall of the corridor in his fugue, so he stubbornly stood up and set off towards the conference room. As he went, he began to stretch inward, toward the Matrix, looking for his famous calm.

But the Matrix was not calm. The Matrix was delighted. Very delighted. What a wonderful strategy Optimus had found, truly the Cybertronian people could now be united in love and pleasure and safety—

No. No no. That had to be a hallucination. The Matrix did not want him to—

It didn’t. Absolutely not. No.

Primus, he needed to defrag. But that’s right, he couldn’t, maybe not ever again, because Megatron was rubbing his hot little node _—because Megatron was self-servicing in the berthroom._

Primus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [entangledwood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eryn/pseuds/entangledwood) and [RHplus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RHplus/works) are my incredible betas!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps Megatron had entertained fanciful, ridiculous little thoughts about ‘what might happen’ now that he and Optimus were sharing a habsuite. But this? Accidentally giving the Prime an eyeful of his valve? This had not been one of them.

“Cohabitation: required.”

That was how Soundwave had put it, when he’d explained the ‘berthroom shortage’ which had led Megatron to be in this humiliating position.

Perhaps Megatron had entertained fanciful, ridiculous little thoughts about ‘what might happen’ now that he and Optimus were sharing a habsuite. But this? Accidentally giving the Prime an eyeful of his valve? This had not been one of them.

If Soundwave ever found out, he’d give Megatron that _look,_ the “Lord Megatron: as much trouble as Rumble and Frenzy” look, complete with a dramatic head tilt. Megatron had been on the receiving end of it alarmingly often of late. Soundwave had even warned him about—well, not this exact situation.

After Soundwave had broken the news to him (privately, of course) and Megatron had spent some time throwing datapads with extreme prejudice about the room, Soundwave, that slagger, had asked, “Megatron: displeased? Stalking: easier with Optimus Prime in the same room.”

“Yes, Soundwave, I am _displeased,_ ” Megatron had growled. “You want me to invite Optimus Prime into my berthroom!” He threw another datapad for emphasis. “What next? Should I be letting him bend me over the desk as well?”

Megatron had regretted his choice of words immediately. They had been… overly specific. And then Soundwave was giving him that knowing look again.

Megatron had crossed his arms and tried to change the subject. “So I may have been excessively vigilant when it comes to the security of this ship, but that doesn’t mean I want to spend more time with the Prime. I want to know what he’s doing! No one objected when it was for military espionage.”

Soundwave hadn’t fallen for the subject change. “Soundwave: suggests Lord Megatron not engage in inappropriate behavior with Optimus Prime.”

Several office supply projectiles later, there had still been no alternative solution that didn't negatively impact ship security.

Megatron had made the invitation at the next staff meeting. He tried to make it as stuffed full of innuendo as he could while still keeping a straight face—might as well make everyone else uncomfortable if he was going to be—and it had been worth it to see the shocked but confused look on the Prime’s face. Now all those provocative comments appeared in an entirely different light...

Pit, he hoped the Prime didn’t think he’d orchestrated this incident on purpose.

Megatron felt hot and angry and like he wanted to sink through the floor or fly into a star or hit something, very, very hard. He hadn’t moved from the berth since the Prime had walked out of the door minutes ago. His legs were still open, and he hadn’t even closed his panel. The brush of air on his wet valve finally made him sit up and cover himself. His node ached as his panel transformed back into place. He’d been so close to a second overload, so very close… But Megatron was not going back to touching himself, not after—not after Optimus had _seen him—_

His traitorous valve tightened eagerly at the thought—at the _memory_ of it, the way Optimus’s optics had focused between his legs… Wide and bright and lingering optics looking down at him in the dim light, as his dripping lubricant made an audible sound as it fell to the berth—and before that, when Optimus Prime had called out his name—

Slag his ridiculous frame, this ought to have been the least erotic thing to ever happen to him! Megatron couldn’t hide the desire from himself, as much as he wanted to. But fantasy was one thing. Reality… Reality was something else entirely.

Yes, Megatron wanted the Prime, but Megatron wanted him on his own terms—only ever on his own terms. He felt all the hypocrisy of it, of wanting and yet not wanting.

In that moment, he had already been thinking of and longing for a spike in his valve, and there the Prime was, like something out of a dream, ready to climb onto the berth and slot between Megatron’s spread knees.

In that moment, when he’d seen the bright glow of blue optics—blue like the sky over a living Cybertron, Megatron had always thought—Megatron had still had a slick finger on his node, his other hand pressing into his valve, and as he met the Prime’s optics he hadn’t stopped the movement of his fingertip over his node at first... One circling stroke, two, _three,_ Optimus Prime _watching him_ and the pleasure had been suddenly hot and focused and extraordinary and he had almost, almost—

He had almost overloaded.

Then the disaster of the situation had crashed into his processor, and he had stopped.

Now, arousal warred with nausea in his tanks. The exposure of it, the intimacy. It was unthinkable. This wasn’t what he had wanted. It was so passive, like it was something happening to him, not something he had chosen. Like Optimus Prime was happening to him, and not the other way around.

Why did it have to be his valve? Why had he had to be laid out on the berth like some kind of shareware?

Optimus Prime had gotten quite a show, damn it all to the Pit.

How long had the Prime been standing there? Had he just stood there and watched Megatron fucking himself with his fingers, frozen in disgust, or frozen with desire—no. Megatron shoved that thought away.

But how long? Moments? _Minutes?_ How long had Megatron had his optics shut—from after his first overload? From _before?_ Had Optimus Prime watched him overloading after all—

Megatron threw himself off the berth with a snarl.

He tried to pace around the room, but there wasn’t space with Optimus’s berth hogging half of the real estate. Couldn’t even pace in his own berthroom anymore. He gave the Prime’s berth a fierce kick, as if that would help.

Megatron put in a discrete comm call to Soundwave. ::Soundwave, send me the access logs for my habsuite from the past two hours.::

He received a small data packet and a suspicious ::Yes, Lord Megatron:: in response.

That was some good news at least. Optimus had only accessed their suite's front door a few minutes before. He couldn’t have been there long enough to see his overload. At least something was still private.

Megatron looked down at himself, and then over at the berth, grimacing. There was lubricant everywhere. That wasn’t exactly a surprise to him, but in the context of what had just happened... Optimus hadn’t seen Megatron’s overload, but he had seen all of this. He had seen the mess Megatron had made of himself and the berth, the puddle of lubricant that had dripped down beneath him, and everything else besides.

Megatron felt the ache of unreleased charge still twisting in his lines and making his node pulse. He was going to have to wait the frustration out this time. Megatron cleaned up his berth, and then took himself into the washracks to remove the rest of the evidence.

He set the solvent on cold.

Once he was finished, all tell-tale signs removed, Megatron still had twenty minutes until the staff meeting. His cooling fans had shut off in the cold of the washracks, but his spark was still shuddering furiously in his chest.

There was no point staying in the room. Megatron would only brood. He would not neglect his duties. He would not show weakness. He would not be made ashamed. Not by Optimus Prime.

Megatron left, and headed to the conference room.

 

* * *

 

The walk through the ship, and the Autobots cowering as he passed, had not been able to take the edge off his roiling emotions.

He would not allow that small mortified part of his spark to rule him. He would not allow his burning anger to overwhelm him. He would not allow this misstep to doom his empire, to doom his Decepticons. He would not.

He was _Megatron,_ the Scourge of Kaon, the Slagmaker, Champion of the Pits, and he would not be cowed by something so foolish. He would not.

Megatron stepped unhesitatingly into the conference room as the door slid aside for him.

Immediately, he realized his mistake. Of course Optimus would do the same thing as himself, the workaholic glitch.

Optimus Prime was seated alone at the head of the conference table, staring at Megatron.

Turning around and leaving was impossible. That would be retreating, which would be admitting there was something to retreat from, and Megatron would not. He had stood his ground against so many worse things, so many worse things perpetrated by the Prime himself—stratagems and threats and battles and a millenium of war—this was nothing in comparison.

But what was he supposed to do? Just walk in and sit down, next to the Prime? Optimus was staring at him. Optimus had been staring at him _before,_ Optimus had been staring at his _valve—_ what the Pit must the Prime think of him?

The horror, the violation of what had happened, and Megatron could do nothing. He could not retaliate, he could not take his revenge out of the Prime’s plating. He could not order the lockdown of the ship, transform it into a prison and a deathtrap for the Autobots. The conditions that had led to the alliance in the first place were still in force. He would not doom his Decepticons to Quintesson slavery because he had been _embarrassed._

He could do nothing real, but he would not be laid low, he would not be reduced by this. He was Megatron.

Megatron stood tall, and proud, and stared back.

Optimus sat up from a sort of hunched position, like he’d been holding his helm in his hands before the door opened. He met Megatron’s gaze with bright, wide optics.

Megatron waited. Minutes went by in total, staring silence. Megatron felt the weight of the Prime’s judgement emanating from those optics. Optimus had always had a peculiar way of looking _into_ rather than _at_ a mech. That gaze had been unnerving in those early years on the battlefield.

Was Optimus simply not going to say anything? What was he expecting! An apology? Well, he was going to be waiting for the rest of eternity. Megatron would not apologize. It was his own habsuite! Megatron didn’t care if Optimus was some kind of a prude—Soundwave had never delivered a definitive verdict on that front, for all his spying—Megatron was not going to apologize for what he did alone in his own berth. Actually, forget his own berth. Megatron wouldn’t have given him an apology if Optimus had caught him self-servicing in the middle of the conference table!

Really, Optimus should be the one apologizing to _him._ Megatron had been the one inconvenienced! The one interrupted! The one who’d spent weeks frustrated and charged up! Megatron deserved an apology, he deserved to see the Prime groveling at his feet—

Optimus’s optics flickered, and then with a burst of static he said, “Megatron, I—”

The door slid open again behind Megatron, and Ultra Magnus entered the room.  

 

* * *

 

The command staff meeting was at least proceeding as usual.

As normal as the new inter-faction staff meetings ever got, at least. Starscream had hijacked the agenda from Ultra Magnus within the first five minutes.

Megatron and the Prime were seated together at the head of the table. They were supposed to present a united front, a symbol of cooperation. Right now, Megatron hated it.

Megatron could feel the heat coming off the Prime’s plating, something he’d never noticed before in these meetings. The table hadn’t exactly been intended to seat two people on this end, and they were quite close together. Megatron noticed every shift of the Prime’s plating.

At least it was distracting him from Starscream’s whining. Something about the noise from the young Autobot gestalt who’d moved in next door.

“Starscream,” Megatron growled, pleased that his voice was coming out sounding like he’d had a perfectly normal morning shift up to that point. “We are not here to discuss your ridiculous personal problems. Hurry up and give us your report on the hyperdrive.”

Starscream huffed, but changed topics.

“We can’t stay inside this nebula forever. At most we can hold out another week, and that’s if we’re careful.” Starscream tossed a datapad onto the table. “Our energon stores are low after our last encounter with the Quints, and the repairs are not helping bring consumption down.”

“But the hyperdrive can be repaired?” Megatron asked.

“Yes, and no.”

“Starscream...” Megatron glared at him.

“Ugh, would you let me finish? Yes, it can be repaired, but no, we can’t repair it. We need a whole new set of piezo transducer crystals. We only have one left, and it’s barely holding together. Obviously we can’t manufacture those on board, they’re too big, and synthetic quartz never works as well.”

“Well that’s some bad news,” murmured Jazz.

“However! Wheeljack and I believe that we will be able to repair the broken one just enough for one last trip, pretty much before it disintegrates. Plus all the other damage to the drive. Wheeljack’s estimates put us at temporarily hyperspace capable about forty-eight hours from now—if we pull people off repairing the shields.”

“Parts of the hull are still completely gone. Will it be safe to take the ship into hyperspace in that condition?” Optimus asked.

Starscream shrugged. “More or less. If you’re asking if the ship could be ripped apart, probably not. At least, it won’t be any more likely than it ever is with a hyperspace jump. Atmospheric containment will be the main issue. Only a few mechs on this ship could withstand exposure to hyperspace, not to mention all the sensitive equipment on board. We’re lucky we didn’t lose more on the jump into the nebula!”

Starscream tapped something on his datapad, and pushed it, now displaying a map of the ship, onto the table. “Wheeljack and I have recommended a reduced containment perimeter in preparation for the jump.”

Optimus said, “Understood. Go ahead with repairing the hyperdrive.”

“Agreed,” Megatron said. “Starscream, send Soundwave the specifications for the jump, as well as the repair materials you require. Soundwave, develop a list of possible destinations and deliver it to us as soon as possible.”

Starscream coughed. “It’s not gonna be that easy.”

Megatron glared at him expectantly.

“We’re going to have to leave the nebula to do it.”

“Starscream: correct,” Soundwave intoned. “Hyperspace navigation: impossible from within nebular gases.”

“And we still dunno if the Quints were able to track us here…” Jazz said.

Megatron imagined the might-be-there fleet of Quintesson ships waiting for them beyond the safe boundaries of the nebula. He and Optimus exchanged a glance, and Megatron nodded to him. Time was short, and they lacked options.

“Without long-range communications, we have no way of calling for backup,” Jazz added.

“There is one other thing.” Starscream tapped at the datapad, and a new, unfortunately familiar, diagram appeared. “I’ve created a new weapon! With the Space Squeezer, we’ll be able to hold our ground against an ambush, even in this decrepit wreck. Wheeljack is worried it might collapse the multiverse, but that’s really quite unlikely—”

Megatron snarled, “Isn’t this the device you want to use to _kill me?”_

“No, no, no, Lord Megatron—”

“You doodled a picture of yourself using it to drag me into a swirling vortex!”

“So I was venting some stress!”

The Prime interrupted them. “Starscream, what exactly would this weapon do?”

“Ah yes, I knew _you_ would appreciate my genius, Prime. It dramatically destabilizes the curvature of space across four dimensions! In a localized area of course—”

“Enough.” Optimus waved a hand at him. “Have Wheeljack submit a report to us with his opinion on your invention as soon as possible, and then we’ll consider it.”

Megatron huffed. “Like _Wheeljack_ is somehow more sensible than Starscream. He’s literally known for blowing himself up!”

The Prime raised an optic ridge, “Wheeljack isn’t obsessed with killing you.”

Megatron sighed. “Fine. Starscream, make sure you and the rest of the science team are also considering a way to get us out of here that doesn’t involve strolling into an ambush or blowing ourselves up. The Prime and I will agree on a tactical plan.”

“Yes,” the Prime said. “Additionally, all of you, I want proposals on improving the battle readiness of this ship relative to your respective departments submitted before Alpha shift tomorrow. Ultra Magnus, what’s next on the agenda?”

Ultra Magnus picked up his datapad, and the rest of the mechs at the table relaxed somewhat now that the life and death discussion was over. “The continued violation of regulations regarding the acceptable decibel level in public areas,” Ultra Magnus read. "Prime, I submitted two potential solutions to this problem. How do you direct me to proceed?” Ultra Magnus asked.

The Prime stared at Ultra Magnus in silence, almost like he had no idea what Magnus was talking about. They’d just been over this last week. Megatron reset his vocalizer pointedly.

Optimus blinked at him, before looking intently back at Ultra Magnus. He slowly said, “I will need to consult Megatron on this issue before moving forward.”

Megatron stomped on a little curl of pleasure that wound through his processor at the consideration. It was only his due, of course, and Optimus was surely reluctant to give it, especially after what had happened only an hour ago.

Starscream yawned with exaggerated inattention. “I don’t see why we should even care about this. You Autobots are so uptight. The rank and file walking around talking too loud is hardly worthy of my attention.”

Jazz laughed, “Mech, you were _just_ complaining about too much noise bugging your recharge!”

Starscream huffed, and lifted his arm to throw his stylus at the Autobot, but Megatron reached over the Prime and brought Starscream’s wrist down on the table with a clang. Jazz just laughed harder.

After that, their subordinates descended into a rehash of the usual debate over which faction had better ‘standards of military conduct,’ whether it was the over-regulated (according to Starscream) Autobot code or the under-regulated (according to Ultra Magnus) Decepticon policies. Megatron quickly stopped paying attention. It was better to let the officers get this argument out of their systems. He looked down at his datapad, reading through Ultra Magnus’s report, and tried not to notice the Prime’s warm vents breezing over his plating.

Magnus submitted reports that were almost as thorough as Soundwave’s, and if they were twice as long, at least they didn’t include a heavy dose of passive aggressive snark. Megatron found all the details fairly interesting—not least for the insight they gave him into the way Autobot High Command normally did business—but something in particular caught his optic in this one. He could barely keep himself from getting up and putting a hole through the nearest wall with his fusion cannon.

It was a short section on an unusual disciplinary matter, and Ultra Magnus had made a note for Soundwave, asking for a consult. It was a case of an Autobot passing contraband written material to a Decepticon. Only the written material wasn’t banned by the Autobots… No, under the Autobot code owning that wretched novel was entirely allowed, so Ultra Magnus couldn’t even punish the Autobot concerned. Megatron’s grip on the datapad tightened. He would need to do something about this…

The minor argument had petered out without intervention from Megatron or the Prime, who seemed to be staring at the wall again when Megatron stole a glance at his optics.

Ultra Magnus was moving on to the next item on the agenda. Megatron narrowed his optics in Ultra Magnus’s direction. Was the mech nervous? He was fidgeting. What was the next item on the agenda?

“Several inter-faction disputes have occurred since our last meeting,” Ultra Magnus began. “These include several incidents involving indecent behavior.”

Megatron felt a flash of precipitate fury as he wondered if Optimus had dared to report him to Ultra Magnus for engaging in ‘indecent behavior.’

“Further information is available in my report, attached to this meeting’s agenda. Please note the appendix offering a plan of changes to leisure activity guidelines which may prevent similar occurrences in the future. Offenders have been reprimanded, and remitted for punishment to their immediate superior. There is only one incident which merits the arbitration of High Command.”

Magnus paused, looking down at his datapad and then back up again before continuing.

“Three days ago, a public, non-violent altercation took place between Megatron—” Oh no. “—and Optimus Prime which violated—” Megatron resisted the urge to groan, and Starscream’s optics brightened gleefully as Ultra Magnus continued. ”—three of the guidelines for cross-faction conduct outlined in Supplement J to the Combined Cybertronian Accord.”

Megatron had a feeling this was going to turn out unpleasant, but he couldn’t help but delight in the mortified look in Optimus’s optics. Optimus’s optics only got wider as Ultra Magnus began reading out a transcript of their most recent argument to the assembled mechs. Megatron resisted the urge to laugh.

The Prime interrupted his second in command. “Ultra Magnus, this really isn’t necessary, my arguments with Megatron are not up for discussion.”

Ultra Magnus was looking at the Prime with an almost painful earnestness. “Sir, your assertion that Megatron came into being through the involvement of an Aldebrazean Slime Monster was not in keeping with the standards of cross-faction behavior which we codified at the beginning of this alliance.”

Starscream screeched something that might have been a laugh at a lower pitch, and Optimus glared. Megatron let himself grin. Maybe his day was getting better.

Soundwave spoke, “Megatron and Optimus Prime: an example to the rest of the troops.”

“Thank you, Soundwave,” Ultra Magnus said, looking bolstered by the support. “Prime, several individuals made inquiries in regards to this incident and it’s bearing on the stability of our political situation.”

“It’d been a while since your last dust-up on the bridge, you follow me? Made people jumpy,” Jazz added.

“Well, thank you for bringing it to my attention,” the Prime gritted out, “but it still doesn’t belong on the meeting agenda.”

Megatron, trying not to laugh, was expecting that to be the end of the topic, but he had underestimated Ultra Magnus.

“Sir, you of course remember the data analysis we presented at our last meeting regarding my disciplinary methods—” Oh, not this farce.

“No!” Megatron growled. He was not prancing his way through that rigamarole with the Prime. He didn’t need to hear the Prime ‘admitting what he had done wrong’—not about this—and he certainly didn’t want to hear whatever nonsense compliment the Prime came up with.

“No. No no,” the Prime said. “Absolutely not.”

“Soundwave: concurs with Ultra Magnus.” That traitor. “New interfaction disciplinary procedures: significantly reduced recidivism and retaliation percentages in past six weeks. Ultra Magnus’s methods: extremely effective.”

“As hilarious as this is, I don’t really see the point,” Starscream drawled. “You can’t refer them to a superior officer for obnoxious menial work, so what’s the big deal?”

“You ‘didn’t see the point’ when it was you apologizing to Perceptor, either, but you haven’t insulted his intelligence since, have you, Screamer?” Ratchet said.

“Stop calling me that!”

“Though really, Ultra Magnus, Optimus and Megatron? I don’t see what you’re trying to accomplish here,” Ratchet said, waving a hand vaguely in their direction.

“No, Ratchet,” the Prime intoned, solemnly. “The rules should apply as much to me as to any other Cybertronian.”

Damn it.

Optimus Prime was silent for a long moment, and then he turned in his seat and looked Megatron in the optics. Megatron hated that look, like the Prime could see straight into his spark. He’d had quite enough of intimacy of any kind for one day. He thought he would much rather Optimus Prime never looked at him ever again—

“Megatron, the things I said to you were unacceptable.”

This was _not_ what Megatron wanted an apology for. It didn’t even matter! So what, it wasn’t like Megatron hadn’t done as much on occasions too numerous to count. Megatron tried to provoke the Prime into at least one personal insult a day. It made him seem less Prime-like in a way that was pleasing.

“I know that you are not the creation of a monstrous organic species. I know that you don’t resemble an organic creation. I know that it was wrong for me to question your origins in any way.”

Oh this was _intolerable._ But the Prime continued.

“Allowing myself to indulge this kind of petty behavior is an insult not only to you, but to the goals we are trying to achieve together.” Here the Prime took a long vent, still holding Megatron’s gaze. “I had hoped to find mutual respect between us as we fight in this shared mission. I can see now that my own behavior has been working against that this whole time. I am sorry for it.”

What absolute slag. Trust the Prime to make this unnecessarily long. Megatron hands curled into fists as he resisted the urge to punch Optimus Prime in the face.

“I respect you, Megatron. You are a great commander and a skilled tactician, and I am grateful that you are here, working beside me, to achieve the goals we share. Please, accept my apology.” The Prime relaxed as he finished, settling into a more comfortable posture and finally _(finally)_ breaking eye contact.

“Well, that wasn’t awkward,” Jazz said.

Ultra Magnus, damn him, cleared his vocalizer, “And now, Megatron, I believe you are familiar with the response.”

Megatron growled out, “I accept your apology, Prime, trusting that it was given in good faith.”

“Don’t be so glum, Lord Megatron! Just think, the compliment could have been about your optics—”

“Starscream, shut up—”

“Skywarp still hasn’t lived that one down.” Starscream smirked.

 

* * *

 

“Well Ultra Magnus, what’s next?” Optimus asked, a bit quickly. Megatron couldn’t blame him for wanting to change the subject.

“Yes, that would be me,” Ratchet said.

“You’ll find the CMO’s full report in the files attached to the agenda,” Ultra Magnus added.

Megatron didn’t think he would ever get used to Ratchet, Chief Medical Officer of the _Nemesis._ That had been an extremely awkward maintenance appointment.

“Optimus and Starscream are the only officers lagging behind on coming in for maintenance. So just a reminder that this is _not optional._ Make an appointment in the next few days or I will come and find you, and you will not like it.”

Starscream laughed derisively, and Megatron hoped he’d get a wrench to the face sometime soon.

“More importantly, I’ve been seeing that this break, involuntarily though it is, has been desperately needed. General health is up, and I’ve been making my way through a backlog of long overdue maintenance. Data’s in the file,” Ratchet said, gesturing to his datapad.

“However, there are still the issues with coding updates for the Cons. Everyone keeps telling me Cons don’t need coding updates, which is literally impossible. And I’ve been seeing some more unexplained injuries that I’m sure are from scuffles. There just isn’t enough space, and it’s getting mechs’ tempers up.” Ratchet set his datapad down with finality.

Even if his bedside manner was on the combative side, Megatron appreciated how he kept oral reports short.

“Yeah, it’s pretty tight right now, but it was worse at the beginning. Mechs are starting to get along better, spending all this time together,” Jazz said.

“You aren’t the one stuck listening to the clumsy attempts at eroticism of an entire gestalt every night!” Starscream hissed. Wait—was that what Starscream had been complaining about?

“Bold of you to assume I’m not participating in a gestalt orgy every night,” Jazz winked.

“What?!” Starscream screeched.

“Jazz, please don’t provoke Starscream,” the Prime said over Starscream’s cries of “Why would you make me imagine that?!” and Ratchet’s disapproving but amused “Don’t interface with the newbuilds, Jazz. They don’t know where you’ve been.”

“I resent that Ratchet, I really do!” Jazz smiled. “And hey, you know I never said I was interfacing with the Aerialbots,” Jazz finished, with a wink to Soundwave across the table. Soundwave didn’t so much as twitch, but his silence was very evocative.

After all, as everyone at the table quickly remembered, the Aerialbots’ Superion was the only _Autobot_ gestalt on the _Nemesis._ They were all silent for a moment.

Ultra Magnus, clutching at one of his datapads and looking deeply disappointed, said, “I’ll add ‘cross-faction interfacing’ to the agenda for our next meeting.”

Starscream, typically mature, laughed, “Oh yes, Ultra Magnus, I’m sure moving the cross-faction orgy—”

“Starscream—” Megatron growled.

“—to the boardroom is exactly the right strategy! How shall we do it? In order of rank?”

A grinding, mechanical whine came from the seat next to Megatron, and to his surprise when he looked he saw that the Prime was gripping the edge of the table hard, with his eyes narrow and pained. What in the Pit was his problem?

“Do you know, actually,” Starscream kept going, looking meaningfully at Megatron and the Prime. “I think I’d like to watch that. It would be _hilarious—”_

“Magnus, you mean ‘regulations,’ ‘cross-faction interfacing _regulations,’”_ Ratchet said, holding his head in his hands, probably wishing he was anywhere else right now.

But Starscream was smirking viciously at a stunned Ultra Magnus, and he wasn’t about to stop. “I bet this big table is very sturdy—”

Optimus made that awful noise again, shuddering with a choked gargle from his vents, optics darting toward Megatron before looking away again. What? Was he—was he _imagining Starscream’s suggestion?_ Was he imagining interfacing with—was he repulsed by the idea? Was the idea of interfacing with Megatron so disgusting—

“Ugh, flirt on your own time, Screamer,” Ratchet said. “Not that Ultra Magnus is ever going to stoop so low.”

 _How dare the Prime._ How dare he! What right did he have to judge Megatron? To find him lacking in this way? What a hypocrite.

So much for ‘equality’ and ‘mutual respect’—did the Prime really think he was so much better than Megatron? Did the Prime really think that because some idiot with a beard shoved a moldy old relic into his chest that made him better than everyone else—

Starscream yelled something indecipherable and made a move to leap across the table and tear out Ratchet’s optics—ugh. Megatron pulled Starscream back by the edge of a wing as it went past his face, and shouted, “Enough!”

So the Prime was repulsed by him? Fine. Let him be repulsed.

“Starscream, stop making a spectacle of yourself.” Pushing Starscream back in the direction of his chair, Megatron lounged in a sprawled, confidently powerful pose and let his legs fall just wide enough that the Prime had to move to avoid being touched. “And stop trying to _debauch_ the rest of High Command.”

Ah yes, the Prime was making that choked, whining growl again. Megatron wanted to see how much Optimus could take before that veneer of politeness cracked all the way through.

“Unless the Prime has a different opinion,” Megatron said, with a smirk and a cruel edge to his tone. “Well, Optimus, do you think an orgy would be a good team-building exercise?”

To Megatron’s surprise, Optimus’s optics weren’t narrowed in anger. Instead, they were wide  and the Prime’s finials were twitching very slightly. That was a tell Megatron recognized from the battlefield, though he’d only seen it a few times.

Optimus Prime was hitting the edge of his self-control.

Then the whining sound came again, but it spun up—those were the Prime’s cooling fans, and just out of the corner of Megatron’s optics, a flash where the Prime’s hand was resting on his thigh, an electric crackle of charge sparking between the Prime’s fingertips—he wasn’t choking back violent disgust—

The Prime was _charged up._

Oh, this was _wonderful._

Megatron almost couldn’t believe it. Though Megatron wasn’t surprised. He was an attractive mech; of course the Prime had gotten interested after that glimpse. After all, who wouldn’t have?

Not that Megatron expected that mere desire would be enough to get the Prime into berth with a labor frame.

“Are you satisfied, Prime?” Megatron threw at him. He got a lot of furious blinking in response. Oh, Megatron wanted to laugh. “Is there anything else we need to discuss with High Command?”

The Prime was still silent and bewildered.

“No? How wonderful.” He turned to them all and growled, “You’re dismissed!”

Their officers made an impressive demonstration of their excellent battle reflexes and immediately cleared the room. Except Soundwave, who exited slowly, giving Megatron one of his disapproving looks, and Optimus who was still seated, staring.

 

* * *

 

Megatron leaned indolently in his chair and inclined his head back, making a long line out of the profile of his chassis and directed a penetrating look at the Prime, just to see what kind of reaction the display might bring him.

It was _delightful._

Megatron had to hold back a shiver as Optimus Prime looked down his body, then back up and away, actually blinking his optics; then the Prime stood up from the chair, stiffly.

Megatron maintained his nonchalant smirk—because he was in control, he was—and Optimus was almost shaking, his hands flexing and clenching rhythmically. Optimus Prime was off-balance and Megatron was in control.

As much fun as Megatron was having teasing the Prime like this—actually _teasing_ him, teasing him, how incredible—Megatron knew maintaining equilibrium between the two of them could mean life or death, and soon.

The alliance had to come first. The _Nemesis_ was in great danger, and he would need to consult seriously with Optimus to develop a plan, without distractions. They would have to talk about this.

And it wasn’t like the Prime would ever actually act on his desire. Megatron wasn’t sure he even wanted him to.

Still, Megatron was reluctant to stop wheedling him.

He wished he could see the rest of Optimus’s expression, but that damned mask was up, as usual.

At least when they took energon together this evening, Megatron would see some honest expression from him. It wouldn’t be whatever emotion was written on his face right now, but—

It suddenly occurred to Megatron, if they couldn’t clear the air after today’s incident, maybe the Prime simply wouldn’t have his ration in the hab from now on. Or maybe he just wouldn’t be willing to talk...

Megatron was surprised to realize how much he disliked that prospect. Megatron had been taking energon alone for several million years before this, had only shared this routine with Optimus for a few weeks, but still… losing this would feel like a defeat.

They were in the habit of sipping their fuel side by side in the front room, using the large desk as a table. The Prime would hold a datapad in one hand sometimes, reading, or they would talk, Megatron finding ways to provoke Optimus into an even greater range of facial expressions. Anything Megatron thought of to bait the Prime into a silly but invigorating argument.

“Prime, your blaster is truly inadequate compared to good Decepticon engineering. We’ll have to issue you something new,” had been a particularly good one.

Once, arguing over their favorite energon additives (mica chips versus rust flakes), Megatron had gotten a grin out of Optimus…

It was too bad, since the Prime probably thought Megatron was some kind of overcharged shareware now.

Though very attractive shareware, apparently.

Megatron would deal with the consequences of _that_ as they came. But if the Prime lost any respect for Megatron’s skills in battle, Megatron wouldn’t be responsible for what he did to beat that respect back into him. He felt anger welling up again, tainting the victorious pleasure of his discovery. He wanted this over with.

“Enjoy your morning, Prime?” Megatron snapped out, almost without knowing what he was saying until he’d said it.

Now that he’d asked the question, Megatron wished he could take it back. He needed to force this confrontation, and he was confident of coming out on top after those reactions he’d seen in the Prime during the meeting. Only now, waiting, did he realize how much power Optimus also held over him.

“Megatron, I am so sorry.” Optimus spoke with quiet sincerity, optics bright and focused down on Megatron’s face.

This was not what Megatron had been expecting.

“I shouldn’t have—” the Prime seemed to choke on his words, finally saying, “I should have acted differently.”

It should not be this easy. Megatron felt he was losing control of the conversation. “Prime—”

But Optimus kept going with maddening earnestness, “I know sharing your space with me must be difficult.” The Prime had started gesticulating with his hands and Megatron half expected him to use some kind of hugely embarrassing illustrative hand gesture. “I didn’t think about how our situation would affect you, much at all really, and definitely not in—in this way.”

Megatron realized that the Prime was going to try to have this discussion entirely using euphemisms. Maybe he was a prude, after all.

“If there is something you need, you only have to ask.”

Megatron’s optics widened with horror as he realized the Prime was trying to talk about Megatron’s _needs._ He shut out the thread of thought that interpreted that offer as—well, as _an offer._

And the Prime was still going, “We can set aside time for private use of the habsuite—”

“Enough, Prime!” Megatron nearly jumped out of his chair. “I will not—what?—Make a self-servicing schedule with you? That would be even worse!”

The Prime’s finials twitched, very visibly this time, and he looked away from Megatron’s gaze. Trust Optimus Prime to overcomplicate something.

“And really, Prime, if you’re going to suggest something so intimate, at least bring yourself to use the real words.” Megatron glared at him then, huffing. “I accept your apology. In future, perhaps knocking would be simple enough?”

The Prime wilted, obviously embarrassed. He sighed and said, “Yes, I take your point. Knocking.”  

Megatron glowed with victory. Still, two apologies from the Prime in as many hours, and both had been unsatisfying somehow…

But their tactical situation couldn’t wait any longer, and he and the Prime would need to agree on a strategy before going back to their hab. Megatron refocused himself with an effort.

“Now that that’s settled, we have much to discuss,” Megatron said, settling authoritatively down into his chair as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Optimus reached for his datapad and sighed again, deeply.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [entangledwood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eryn/pseuds/entangledwood) and [RHplus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RHplus), thank you for beta-ing so patiently!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m attracted to him, Ratchet. I’m attracted to Megatron,” Optimus intoned solemnly.

It’s dark, and Optimus is… in the berthroom.

Megatron is on their berth, lying spread open, delicious and exposed and wet. He is staring up at Optimus with a wincing expression so exquisitely embarrassed that Optimus can’t help but step closer.

Optimus lets the doorway slide shut behind him, leaving them in the darkness, no light but their optics and Megatron’s glowing, throbbing biolights. Megatron is still frozen, his interrupted charge tingling in the air between them. Optimus doesn’t even think to stop himself from reaching down to touch everything he wants.

He earns a delightful noise when he takes hold of Megatron’s hips with both hands. It’s easy, to just pull Megatron down to the end of the berth until his aft is almost hanging over the edge. And of course Megatron lets him.

Megatron’s legs settle over his shoulders, and oh, what wonderful leverage Optimus has: with his hands around Megatron’s waist he can keep him still so easily. Optimus wants his mouth on Megatron’s node more than anything. And there it is, conveniently glowing in the darkness for him to find.

So he does.

He puts his mouth on Megatron’s valve and licks and sucks and kisses softly. Megatron is making those vivid, perfect, choked moans, that rumble through his body like great waves, and Optimus knows that Megatron is trying so hard to keep himself quiet, to not give himself away, but Optimus is going to drive him past that, into loud, aching cries of pleasure, all for him to hear, only for him—but not now, not now because he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know what that would sound like—

Optimus just wants to stay here, with his face pressed against the soft, dripping, vulnerable core of Megatron, Megatron, his—

_“Optimus!”_

His what? Who _is_ Megatron to him? All the labels are running together, _enemy_ and _household_ and _worthy_ and _treasured_ and his spark shines so brightly and Optimus wants to _possess him,_ to keep him, to have him here calling Optimus’s name and breaking apart under his tongue until the stars themselves wink out—

_“Wake up, Prime!”_

 

* * *

 

Optimus jolted up, venting hard. Megatron was standing at the end of his berth, looking imposing and… concerned?

“Well? Are you alright?” asked Megatron, frowning down at him.

Optimus’s short term memory was loading up sluggishly. He was disoriented, still adjusting to the unpleasant reality that he had never and was not currently getting personally acquainted with Megatron’s plush little valve. It wasn’t pressing soft and so slick against his face. Megatron wasn’t writhing in his hold and trying to rock his hips closer, his worst enemy wasn’t crying out his name, _Optimus, Optimus!_ like he’d forgotten any other words—

“Optimus!” Megatron said. He looked more concerned than before.

Without thinking, Optimus hummed a soothing tone in response to the concern. Because yes, he was alright, and he didn’t want a member of his household to be upset. But as he remembered what pleasant thing he was _not_ doing right at that moment, the appeasing hum turned into a frustrated growl and a rev of his engine.

Megatron stared. “Shall I call for your medic?” he asked.

Optimus finally woke up the rest of the way at that question. The threat of Ratchet was enough to wake anyone up... As he opened his mouth to respond, he realized that his battle mask was down. Optimus rushed to activate it with a _snap._

It must have been open during the whole exchange, and he was dismayed to realize he had no idea what kind of expressions he’d been making. He must have retracted the mask involuntarily during the recharge flux, in anticipation of…of what he was doing in the recharge flux.

Optimus could only be grateful he hadn’t opened a very different panel instead.

Optimus pulled himself together and swung his legs over edge of the berth to stand. He tried for ‘strong and dignified,’ like the avatar of Primus he was, and not some newbuild who’d never had an interface dream before.

“No, thank you, Megatron, I’m perfectly alright,” he said. _I don’t need a medic, I need you to get on the berth and open your panels,_ he thought, and cursed himself for thinking it. Maybe, if he asked nicely...

Megatron flitted his optics up and down Optimus’s frame. Optimus felt a shiver of pride burn through his struts at the attention, but then Megatron asked, “This isn’t something contagious, is it?”

Well, that was a charge killer.

“What? No!”

Optimus sincerely wished he could go back to recharge and start the day over again. Not that he could blame Megatron for wondering. Was he contagious—ugh. And after what a fool he’d made of himself in the staff meeting yesterday...

Obviously he couldn’t tell Megatron the truth. _Not to worry, Megatron, I was only dreaming about how your anterior node would feel pressed against my face._ Optimus felt a sudden wild glee at the idea of simply saying as much out loud. But he restrained himself.

“I should have expected you’d be fool enough to contract some bizarre virus, Prime—” Megatron crossed his arms imposingly and launched into a speech.

It was going to be one of those speeches—loud, my way or the highway, classic Megatron tirades he’d heard a million times. Definitely going to end with some creative threat, and really, this was perfect, Optimus thought. He’d grown to loathe this tone of voice from Megatron. It always heralded something bad to come, and it would be sure to dispatch the rest of this inconvenient desire. There, that awful rasping, he hated that! The rough, rolling sharpness of it, and, now that he was listening, in each vowel Optimus was able to hear echoes of those choked rumblings Megatron had been making only the day before... Optimus wondered just how loud Megatron might get if he _weren’t_ choking off those sounds—

This was intolerable.

Maybe he should go see Ratchet. Something had to be wrong with him.

Optimus cut him off before Megatron could finish his thought. Or get Optimus charged up again—by yelling belligerently. _What was happening to him._ “No, no, I’m alright,” Optimus said. How should he put this. “It was only… only a bad dream.” Definitely not a good dream. Of course not.

Megatron narrowed his optics but said nothing.

“But I might as well take this opportunity to go in for my turn at maintenance.” Optimus lifted his head decisively. “Ratchet may even have something to help improve my recharge. We’ll simply have our morning briefing a bit late today.”

Yes. He would see Ratchet, Ratchet would fix whatever this was, and they would have their morning briefing. It would be scrupulously professional, and Optimus would not have to think about this incident ever again. No matter how much he wanted to.

But then Megatron laughed at him—actually laughed at him!—and Optimus was gearing up to respond with indignant but cold offense when Megatron said, “Prime, check your chrono.” And he was smiling, the slagger, but it was a fond-ish expression, and Optimus’s domestic protocols lit up cheerfully.

“We’ll be having an afternoon briefing at this rate. You’ve slept in by more than three hours.”

 

* * *

 

Optimus waited in one of the few private rooms of the _Nemesis’s_ medbay. Optimus had been repaired on the _Nemesis_ more than once now, but he still found the experience disconcerting.

There wasn’t anything wrong with the medbay… It was just extremely _purple._

It was like when he woke up to find Megatron right there in the room—he half expected to be interrogated or thrown in a cell, not scolded by Ratchet.  

He was definitely going to be scolded by Ratchet today.

Optimus was still trying to decide how to explain what was wrong with him—the lack of defrag, the sudden and inexplicable _attraction to Megatron—_ when the medic grumped his way into the room.

“Don’t think I don’t know that going for a walk-in appointment is your way of catching me when I’m too busy to get to you, Prime.”

“Ratchet—”

“Well, it’s not going to work today, is it,” Ratchet said, coming beside the medical berth where Optimus sat, and tapping rudely on the arm access hatch for the Prime’s medical port. Optimus obediently slid it open. Ratchet plugged in a diagnostic cable without pausing his diatribe. “Not that I’m not busy. I’m plenty busy. I’ve finally gotten somewhere with the Decepticons and their ridiculous lack of coding updates—this whole ship is even more prone to glitching than I thought—but first things first—” here the medic paused, frowning, as he completed handshake protocols with Optimus’s systems and began downloading data.

“What the frag have you done to your processor now?!”

Optimus winced as Ratchet pulled up some of his integrated holo-displays, and they watched a flood of data emerge. A chart appeared, and Ratchet said, “That’s your processing efficiency over time. What the Pit have you been doing?”

The graph was not pretty.

“You’ve been declining sharply for a full week! Well, it’s a bit better today actually—but there are actual glitches in your logs—Optimus, how many times do I have to tell you to come to me immediately—”

“Ratchet, it really wasn’t that serious.”  

“Optimus, glitches are very serious,” Ratchet said, and as Optimus started to shake his head, the medic put his hand on Optimus’s arm and said sternly, “You will tell me why you’re glitching, or I will assert my authority as the ranking medical officer aboard this ship. Don’t think I won’t magnetize your aft to this berth until you come clean!”

Optimus knew Ratchet wouldn’t hesitate to relieve him of duty, even on the _Nemesis._ Slowly, and with some embarrassment, Optimus explained: the glitches; Megatron, now a member of his household; Megatron, still a hyper-violent warlord...

Unfortunately, Ratchet didn’t have an easy solution.

“Even if you had told me about this problem a week ago, I wouldn’t have advised you to undergo coding revision. On something as deeply rooted as social protocols? It would have taken—would take—days, and at certain points you would be extremely vulnerable.”

That was about what Optimus had been expecting.

“...and Optimus, I hate to break this to you, but nothing is actually _wrong_ with your social protocols.”

That was not what Optimus had been expecting.

“Ratchet—” Optimus started, but Ratchet ignored his protest.

“They’re responding correctly! Megatron is, in actual fact, a member of your household. It’s definitely non-traditional, but you’re cohabiting intentionally. No superseding relationships, since you’re sharing command, and none of the other typical exceptions. You’d have to ask Magnus, but I think it’s even a legal fact after that public announcement. Not that it matters—all those laws are defunct. You’re not gonna be paying taxes anytime soon!”

Ratchet chuckled and put a hand on Optimus’s arm.

“The problem is that the situation is bizarre. It’s an edge case, and messing with your coding might make it worse, as much as better.”

Optimus sighed.

“And anyway, this is the worst possible time for me to take on a coding revision project.”

Optimus looked at his doctor quizzically, but before he could ask the question, Ratchet explained, “Yes, yes, I’ve done it a thousand times. But the past few weeks, everything I know about Cybertronian coding… You see, the Decepticons have the most bizarre coding profiles.”

“Ratchet, what do you mean?”

“It’s all tangled up in knots! It’s incredibly difficult to decipher, but the strangest part is that it all seems to be working. Obviously, since they’re all still functioning.”

Ratchet adjusted something on his readouts before continuing.

“I’ve only had a few of them trust me enough to let me so much as look at their coding, never mind update it.” Ratchet looked quite serious for a moment. “Optimus, they don’t get coding updates. None of them. Not Megatron, not Soundwave, none of them. At all.”

Optimus startled, saying, “Is that dangerous? For the Autobots?” He thought of Megatron’s suspicion of a virus from that morning.

“No, no—not that I can see. They get patches, that sort of thing, same as us. Their firewalls and self-repair systems aren’t tied up like their base code, thank Primus. But what I do for the Autobots: standardizing a useful update to the shared framework, or even making sure someone hasn’t altered their base code in a dangerous way by mistake, they just _don’t._ Actually, they can’t. It’s just too complicated.”

Ratchet sighed. “Remember early in the war, when we were running into all those social problems? And finally we pushed a big update so everyone had a matching military social framework pack? The Decepticons didn’t do that, and couldn’t have done that.”

Ratchet paused as he checked something on a monitor by the berth. “I’m gonna push some updates to you now—a few patches, and something that should help with the efficiency of your left knee servo.”

As they both waited for Optimus to unpack the files and integrate them, Ratchet continued, ”Optimus, I hardly know how to even say this. I think the Decepticons—at least the ones I’ve looked at—were onlined _without_ what we would consider standard programming. They’ve got… I don’t even know, it’s like a skeleton framework!”

As Ratchet spoke, Optimus felt the remote activation of smaller sections of his knee joint as Ratchet tested out the new programming. “Social protocols are the worst off, but their original language packs—one I looked at had to learn to read _iteratively,_ if you can believe it. And I don’t want to talk about how their minds themselves are organized. They don’t have nearly as much manual control over their internal processing as we do.”

“But…” Optimus struggled to understand, “They do have social protocols. They behave quite differently from us, but their society is organized. It’s not chaotic.”

“Yes, yes, but you see, the social protocols they do have are all _learned._ And learned from each other too, which is why they’re semi-consistent. Unsupervised clustering with reinforcement learning is the basis for the _majority_ of their social protocols, not to mention everything else in their processors.”

“I’m certainly not a coding expert, but I’m not seeing why that’s a problem. We all use iterative learning like that, Ratchet.”

“Yes, yes—but—look. Some of your domestic, _household_ protocols are learned in this way. From before you ascended to the Primacy, you learned specific behaviors that your coding translated into instinctive, general directives. But those learned behaviors and directives are organized by—built on—your hard-coded social protocols about _household._ With enough time, or enough positive reinforcement, the learned protocols get as entrenched as the coding you onlined with. But the Decepticons don’t have a framework of classes like that to build on, so their iterative coding is haphazard, totally unorganized, too specific, and wildly difficult to edit.”

Ratchet frowned, thinking. “I can’t help them. A serious coding problem for a Decepticon would be beyond my skills. For now, anyway. If we ever make it to a post-war society it’ll be a problem then too. Something to consider.”

It was something to consider. How could they help those mechs? Optimus wondered if Megatron had any coding to define his _household_ relationships...

Optimus felt Ratchet finishing the series of physical tests he was drawing data on.

“Alright, enough of my complaining. You explained the glitches, Optimus, but you didn’t explain your lack of defrag. What’s going on?”

Optimus groaned. “Yes, I didn’t explain that. I’m wondering if there’s anything you can give me to help me stay in recharge. Megatron venting too loud has been enough to jolt me awake ready for a fight.”

“I can see how that would be a problem. But that doesn’t account for last night. According to your logs you actually overslept. Did something change? Was Megatron not there?”

Reluctantly, Optimus admitted, “Yes, something did change.”

Ratchet only raised an optic ridge in response.

“I had an… I saw this...” Optimus gave up on that explanation and tried again. “My sex drive is back. It’s been a few years, as you know.”

“A few years, he says… That’s great news, Optimus!” Ratchet said cheerfully. “If you’re comfortable, I’d love to know what triggered that. It might help me treat future patients with a similar—”

“No, no. Uh, no. It’s not. It’s not good news. Something happened, and since then, Ratchet—it hasn’t gone away.”

Ratchet squinted at him suspiciously. “Alright, spit it out. You should be happy your interface drive is back up.”

Optimus looked pleadingly at the ceiling, wishing this whole situation would just _stop happening,_ wishing that he wasn’t thinking vividly about ‘what actually happened,’ yet again. Megatron, in their berthroom—no. No, he needed help. He needed to make this stop, he needed to know how much of this was really—was really him, and not a glitch, or, possibly, the Matrix of all things. Might as well get it over with.

“Well, Ratchet, yesterday, I walked in on Megatron self-servicing.”

There. He’d said it.

The _‘using his valve’_ part of what he had seen, Optimus held back. To tell Ratchet that would be… too intimate. It would be unfair to Megatron, and much too revealing about Optimus himself. The embarrassment of the whole thing was distressing, of course, but that aspect was not what had Optimus uncomfortable now. It was the knowledge, the _extremely visual_ knowledge about Megatron’s array, and the sense that something in him had woken up and wasn’t going to go away again without a fight.

Ratchet cursed, shaking his head. “Of course you did. Dammit, I owe Jazz money. Again!”

“Wait, what?” Optimus felt like the entire day had been one case of whiplash after another, and he hadn’t even been awake for an hour yet.

But Ratchet didn’t elaborate.

“That certainly explains how ‘getting your sex drive back’ helped you sleep through the night. Especially with Megatron in the room. So, then what happened?”

“No, no,” Optimus said. “You had a bet with Jazz about _what?”_

“Megatron’s equipment really turn your crankshaft, eh?” Ratchet raised a provocative eyebrow.

Optimus could only splutter, Jazz and his (definitely illegal) betting practices forgotten. “Ratchet!”

“Hey, we’ve all heard things. This happen before the staff meeting by any chance?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Yepp. Thought so. We were wondering what had gotten under your plating. Literally under your plating, as it turns out, ha!”

“What ‘we’? You and Jazz? When you were making this bet about—”

“No no, Prime, _that’s_ an old wager.”

Before Optimus could get the words out to ask ‘an old wager about _what,’_ Ratchet continued. “I can see how you’d be kind of off balance after that, and I’m delighted to have the gossip, but what exactly is bothering you about this?”

“What—what!” What kind of a question—Optimus felt overwhelmed and confused and like he’d much rather have been sleeping on a floor somewhere for the past two weeks instead of in Megatron’s hab. But it felt unthinkable, the idea of never having seen that supremely erotic view, of not knowing what was behind Megatron’s panels—

Right, that was the answer. The answer to the question Ratchet had asked.

“I’m attracted to him, Ratchet. I’m attracted to Megatron,” Optimus intoned solemnly.

To Optimus’s surprise, this didn’t get him any reaction.

“Yeah, I kinda got that.” Ratchet was giving him that look, that ‘what kind of an idiot have you been this time’ look. “What’s the problem?”

“What do you mean, ‘what’s the problem?’ It’s Megatron!”

“C’mon, Prime, I may be old, but I’m not blind. That’s pretty old news.”

Optimus blinked. Then his optics narrowed suspiciously. “What’s old news?”

“You…” Ratchet drawled, “Megatron… You and Megatron… The obsession, the eternal struggle, the open secret everyone knows, but no one talks about?”

Optimus stared. “Ratchet, I can’t believe I have to ask this, but do you mean to tell me that _everyone_ thinks that I’ve been harboring some kind of _sexual intentions_ towards the _enemy leader?”_

“Well, not intentions. We know you wouldn’t put us in danger like that, Optimus.” Ratchet was beginning to frown now. “You don’t mean you didn’t know, right?”

“Ratchet, not only did I ‘not know,’ but I have never been secretly attracted to Megatron.” Optimus paused, then added quietly, “Before this.”

“Uh, ya fooled me. Look, Optimus, I hate to break it to you, but there’s more than a little bit of an unhealthy fixation there.”

Optimus did not want to deal with this.

“Ratchet, I am worried that the—the feelings I’m having are not—that they aren’t mine. That they aren’t my feelings. My coding was confused about Megatron before this incident, and maybe that’s what’s responsible for what I’m experiencing.”

Ratchet grabbed for a stool and settled himself down, looking a little more serious.

“I think that’s pretty unlikely. I certainly didn’t catch any errors in your code just now. And if you _are_ genuinely attracted to Megatron, your coding might be putting him in some new classes anyway, depending. Look, Optimus, are you treating this like it’s some kind of moral issue?”

“It’s _Megatron.”_

Ratchet sighed. “Right, yes, how could I forget, Megatron is just that important, everything to do with him is some kind of crisis—Prime, this is not a moral issue. So you’re attracted to the guy. So are lots of people! It’s kind of notorious actually, how very many mechs... Anyway, you never acted on that during the war—”

“—I never _felt_ that during the war—”

“Right, right, sure, but now it doesn’t matter! Actually, when are you going to have a better, more ‘morally acceptable’ opportunity than this? Who knows when we’ll have an alliance with the Decepticons again, after all. I wouldn’t recommend baring your spark to the guy—unless you wanted to get really creative about peace negotiations—”

“Ratchet!”

“But yeah, sounds like a good idea to me.” Ratchet winked at him. “Sounds like a fun idea!”

Optimus sighed. “Ratchet, it is not a good idea. The Matrix… the Matrix, Ratchet.”

Optimus didn’t know how to elaborate on what the Matrix had been… encouraging. He hoped they might leave the discussion there, so Optimus wouldn’t have to explain. While he’d been waiting for Ratchet he’d tried, tentatively, to reach out to the artifact again, and the wave of joyous but somehow _lewd_ pseudo-emotion that he’d felt had made him slam the connection shut again.

“Ah, I see why you’re panicking now. Primus doesn’t approve?” Now Ratchet was wearing the look that always preceded his ‘the Matrix is bad for your mental health’ speech.

Optimus looked at the ceiling. “It’s not that.”

“It’s not that?”

“Yes. It’s not that,” Optimus repeated, eyes still dutifully examining the ceiling. It was very purple. Optimus idly wondered if Megatron’s spike had any purple accents. His valve had been white and silver and black, nothing extravagant...

“So… are you saying that Primus _approves_ of your rampant lust for Megatron?” Ratchet drawled.

He couldn’t dispute any part of that statement, so Optimus stayed silent.

“Ah.” Ratchet was giving him a knowing a look. He could feel it.

“You know how I feel about being influenced by the Matrix when it comes to my personal life.”

“Yeah, okay. That’s a fair concern.”

“Oh, but it wasn’t a fair concern when my concern was that this is Megatron of all people,” Optimus huffed.

“You’re an adult, you can make your own choices about your own arch nemesis. Primus is an eldritch whatever—non-person—who, as far as I can tell, gets his rocks off telling people what to do,” Ratchet said, flippantly.

Optimus glared. “Ratchet, you know I’m far from devout, but the blasphemy is not helpful.”

“Yes, yes. When did you first notice the Matrix taking an interest in, uh, Megatron, through you?”

“Yesterday, just after the—after what happened.”

“You can say ‘after I saw Megatron’s giant spike,’ you know. I’m not going to faint from the shock.”

Optimus spluttered, and felt humiliatingly reminded of what Megatron had said to him: _if you’re going to suggest something so intimate, at least bring yourself to use the real words._

He had not, in fact, seen Megatron’s ‘giant spike’—if it even was a giant spike, Optimus thought. It could be average—but if it were average then it would also be proportional—proportional would be _more than enough—_ but it could also be small! Megatron might have a small spike...

Optimus wondered if Megatron had any mods… Or paint. Had Megatron made sure his spike matched his valve—

This train of thought wasn’t taking him anywhere good.

“I also had a strange recharge flux last night. It could have been influenced by the Matrix.” _Use the real words, you’re not a newbuild,_ Optimus thought to himself. “It was an interface dream.”

“That’s a question I can answer. Give me a minute with your logs.” Ratchet did something with his connection to the computer. Then they waited as Ratchet took a deeper look at Optimus’s internal records. Ratchet was always very discreet, but Optimus still felt that shivering feeling that came with someone else pulling up his data.

“Well, I’m not sure if you’ll like this or not,” Ratchet said, looking up. “But that dream was all you.”

Optimus looked up at the ceiling again, and wished he had a battle mask that covered his eyes, too.

“Optimus, I’ve seen what your logs look like after a ‘vision’ from the Matrix. This was a normal recharge flux.”

Optimus groaned. So it was real. He really wanted… He really wanted Megatron. Megatron, who was his enemy, his rival, _his—_

“From my perspective, it’s good news that the Matrix isn’t warping your sexual responses. That’s good, Optimus.”

“I know, Ratchet. I just—it was easier to resist when I thought something might be wrong with me.” Optimus tried to pull back to some semblance of calm.

“So don’t resist,” Ratchet said, not even looking at Optimus, like it was no big deal.

Optimus gaped.

“We were all there in that staff meeting. And there’s no way to know if Megatron’s just playing a game with you or not—well, no, he’s definitely playing a game. Trying to provoke you, as usual. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t interested. Ultra Magnus has already put 'cross-faction interfacing regulations' on the agenda for next week, so your timing’s perfect. Be careful, of course. But think about it. Could be a lot of fun, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh ha ha ha, you can’t be serious—”

“I mean, we both know he’s packing.”

Optimus froze, blinking at his Chief Medical Officer, and resolutely not asking the less than innocent questions that immediately bubbled up in his processor.

“Ratchet, are you trying to tell me—”

“That I gave him a complete physical last week? Yepp. I know all about it.” Ratchet leered. “And I’m sure the visual you got was much more impressive, but his specs are—”

“Please, please stop.” _Please send me a copy of those specs,_ Optimus thought. And cursed himself for thinking it.

“If I can ever get proof that doesn’t violate patient confidentiality, I’m gonna win a lot of money off of—”

“If you tell me, I will report you to Ultra Magnus. I don’t want to know who else is illegally betting on the size of Megatron’s spike.” Optimus rested his head in his hands.

“Alright, alright, I’ll lay off. Tell me more about this dream, you’re obviously upset by it. I promise it’s not a prurient question!”

 _Why not._ He sighed. “Well, it was based on the events of yesterday.”

“Did it feel unrealistic?”

“Not really. There was a very different ending.”

Ratchet choked off a chuckle and Optimus glared at him before continuing, “Megatron wasn’t very true to life.” Optimus thought for a moment. “He wasn’t... challenging.”

“Well, that takes away half the appeal.”

Optimus groaned.

“Oh, stop sounding so scandalized. Like you’d be interested in a docile version of Megatron.”

“I wouldn’t not be interested?” Optimus protested weakly. Optimus thought of how the Megatron in the dream had just, had just _let him._ It was almost too intoxicating to imagine, now in the light of day, but somehow, not quite _right._

“Oh, I see how it is.”

“No, Ratchet. No. I’m not—I think my imagination just isn’t good enough to recreate Megatron’s personality.”

“What, you don’t have enough material for that?” Ratchet looked at him questioningly. “There was all the innuendo at the staff meeting. Actually, all the innuendo since we arrived on the _Nemesis. Yesterday_ was obviously a flirtation.”

“Ratchet, I’m really not convinced it was.” Optimus remembered with sudden clarity that frozen moment before the staff meeting—when Megatron had found him alone in the boardroom and the intensity of Megatron’s gaze had both convicted and inflamed Optimus. Optimus thought of what he had almost said aloud, what he had almost _asked Megatron for,_ before Ultra Magnus had interrupted.

In hindsight, that intensity from Megatron could easily have been anger, rather than—rather than whatever kind of intensity he might have imagined it was.

“Uh, I hate to break it to you, but there aren’t a lot of alternative interpretations for, and I quote, ‘Do you think an orgy would be a good team-building exercise?’ Which is what Megatron said to you. Word for word.”

Optimus remembered.

“I can’t do that weird, terrifying but tingly, intonation thing he does, but there really wasn’t a lot of room for doubt...”

_Well, Optimus, do you think an orgy would be a good team-building exercise?_

Megatron had managed to make the word ‘exercise’ sound especially filthy.

And Megatron had been right next to him, practically touching. Optimus had barely been able to focus with Megatron’s knee so close to him. Optimus had been helplessly reminded, as Megatron lounged in his chair and let his legs drift a little more open, of the exact position he’d last seen Megatron’s knees in—braced so he could thrust his wet valve onto his own fingers. And the things he’d said, and the way he’d said them!

Optimus’s traitorous processor was combining that moment, next to Megatron at the conference table, as Megatron teased him (Megatron _had_ been teasing him, maliciously perhaps, but still), with his erotic dream, painting a picture of Optimus with his face buried in Megatron’s valve and both of them sprawled on top of that conference table—and now Optimus’s speculation module was making an attempt to get Megatron’s personality right; he’d probably be criticizing Optimus the whole way through, giving orders, egging Optimus on—at least until Optimus drove him into gasping, perfect, incoherent bliss—

“Well, your interface protocols are _definitely_ working,” said Ratchet, looking at one of his readouts.

Ratchet was still connected to his systems, seeing all the physical symptoms of what his processor was dwelling on—Optimus frantically cut off his daydream and tried to regain his composure.

Ratchet just laughed at him.

“This isn’t funny, Ratchet!”

Ratchet just laughed harder, and disconnected from Optimus’s medical port.

“Alright, I’m done. As your medical professional, I’m pleased to see your interface drive is improving.” Another chuckle. “Of course, it’s up to you how to deal with this situation, but you really don’t have to deny yourself this, Optimus.”

Optimus sighed.

“I’ll think about it, Ratchet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The amazing [entangledwood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eryn/pseuds/entangledwood) and [RHplus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RHplus) whipped this into shape. Thank you!
> 
> We're getting a second chapter of OP's perspective in a row after this, because the original draft of Chapter 4 was so long I had to cut it in half!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Imminent death just didn’t have the immediate and urgent novelty of the terrible, horrible, very bad question Optimus was asking himself: was he going to act on his attraction to Megatron?

Optimus did think about his attraction to Megatron.

He thought about it all through his ‘morning’ briefing with Megatron and Megatron’s smug face. He thought about it on the bridge. He thought about it as he read the new reports from Ultra Magnus and Starscream. He thought about it as he resolutely avoided communing with the Matrix. He thought about it as he and Megatron argued over how to get out of this latest impossible situation.  

And it was an impossible situation. Their odds of making it out of the nebula alive were... not the best. But they’d each survived impossible odds before, both in the past few months together, and separately in an eternity of war. It was almost a relief, not being solely responsible for these decisions. Particularly because Megatron knew, he knew what it was to prepare to make the hard choices.

They came up with a plan.

Or, really, several plans. And contingencies, worst case scenarios, last-ditch hopes.

They were as ready as they were going to be. It was only a matter of waiting, now. The hyperdrive repairs were only hours from completion, and their subordinates had been tasked with making the ship battle-ready.

Facing that reality felt _normal_ to Optimus. He wasn’t even devoting much of his conscious processing to it.

Imminent death just didn’t have the immediate and urgent novelty of the terrible, horrible, very bad question Optimus was asking himself: was he going to act on his attraction to Megatron?

 

* * *

 

No. Definitely not.

He was not going to give in to these desires. Megatron was _complicated,_ and introducing a new variable to their—already uncomfortably personal—diplomatic relationship was a dangerous idea. Optimus _needed_ Megatron. He needed him strong and steady and by his side in the fight to come. He couldn’t risk it.

The flirtations and the innuendo were only a game of Megatron’s, just another way to push Optimus’s buttons. Knowing it was happening didn’t help, unfortunately. And yesterday, that edge to all their interactions after what Optimus had seen... Optimus knew Megatron had been testing him underneath all the teasing. Testing to see how he would react.

Even thinking about the end of the staff meeting made Optimus shrink with embarrassment. He’d been crawling with charge, and there was no way Megatron hadn’t noticed.

What must Megatron think of him.

If Megatron tried a similar game again, Optimus would not give in. He wouldn’t break. He would not respond to this flirtation.

That, at least, was a familiar dynamic between them. The push and pull, Megatron trying to provoke, Optimus resisting.

Megatron certainly wasn’t serious about the idea. His shock and embarrassment at the events of yesterday were enough proof of his lack of genuine interest.

It was just a game, and Optimus would play it carefully.

 

* * *

 

However, when Optimus made his way back to the hab at the end of his shift, Megatron was not in a playful mood.

Megatron didn’t even smile at him.

There was a window in their foyer looking out into the dark of space, positioned behind the desk. Sixteen days ago, when Optimus had moved in, that window had looked out on total darkness. The burgundy-threaded blackness of light-absorbent nebulaic gases. Now, as the ship had drifted, the view had changed. Glowing, glorious purples and reds shifted slowly outside, and the view cast a halo around Megatron. Magenta light shifted across the edges of Megatron’s plating. Optimus had seen the view from the bridge already, but here, in this small room, it seemed much more present. Megatron hadn’t even bothered to command the overhead lights on, the glow was so bright.

Megatron was frowning, looking at something on their desk. His fusion cannon was detached and leaning against the wall.

Optimus felt the dissonance of being disappointed not to see the usual sideways smile. How could he have gotten used to it in such a short time...

At first, Optimus thought Megatron was glaring down at the inactive holo stand.

The previous evening, in his fugue state of charge, confusion, and exhaustion, Optimus had impulsively set out several of his own personal items around the hab suite. The ancient holo he’d kept of Ariel, Dion, and Orion, some favorite supplies from Earth for the washracks, a few datapads. It had seemed logical, somehow, after their conversation. If Megatron could treat the space like it was intimate, private, then Optimus could bring a few mementos out of subspace, as well.

Megatron hadn’t commented at the time, because Megatron hadn’t been there, and Optimus had fallen into recharge early. Optimus didn’t know where Megatron had taken his evening energon. Thinking of it now, Optimus felt perturbed by that all over again—for all it was sensible of Megatron to avoid him after what had happened, it had still felt bizarrely like being snubbed.

If Optimus had been the one to take his evening meal elsewhere, that would have been a different matter, of course.

But Megatron was not glaring vehemently at the holo stand, he was looking at a datapad on top of the desk.

What datapad was that?

Oh no.

 _Oh no._ That was not—he had _not_ meant to—that was the _wrong datapad._ Optimus swore he’d intended to keep some of his _company appropriate_ fiction around their habsuite and not—

Not _Aroused by the Savage Gladiator._

Optimus was mortified. Maybe he should just get used to feeling that way around Megatron.

Megatron looked up at him, scrutinizingly, and picked up the datapad. He tapped it on the desk a few times and slid it towards Optimus.

“I see you’ve been taking a look at the ‘contraband’ Ultra Magnus picked up,” Megatron said, mysteriously. Then, “I never took you for one with so much prurient curiosity, Prime.”

Optimus did not understand what was happening.

But Megatron was still speaking, “Tell me, were you really going to read it?”

“Megatron—”

As usual, Megatron bulldozed his way over Optimus’s attempt at a response.

“Don’t think I don’t know why you would. And don’t give me some nonsense about a ‘thorough investigation’ or even your half-baked idealism about ‘censorship’—we both know you’d never allow your bots to read Decepticon writings—but something like this? Oh, _that’s_ fine!” Megatron was gesturing widely with his hands and pacing behind their desk. “I worked hard to keep copies of this thing out of the Decepticon ranks, and I won’t have some perverted Autobot undoing it all. You will enforce the banning of this book!”

“Megatron, are we both talking about _Aroused by—”_ Optimus had to work to get the words out. _"Aroused by the Savage Gladiator?_ By Seducturus?”

Why couldn’t it have been one of his more discreet books? Like _Love Among the Stars_ or _Two Sparks—_

“Yes, obviously. You went and got it from Ultra Magnus, didn’t you?”

Optimus made a non-committal noise, which wasn’t lying, not really. This was certainly not a book he could imagine Ultra Magnus simply possessing, but he was starting to vaguely remember something from Ultra Magnus’s report. Optimus had thought it was an unimportant hiccup in the integration of the joint bureaucracy… He’d been expecting some pushback from Megatron on the issue, but Optimus had intended to stay firm on his stance on censorship.

No matter how often Ultra Magnus complained about it, no Autobot would be punished for reading or owning some book that could be considered dangerous to the Autobot cause.

Optimus would have tried to find an equitable compromise—reprimanding the Autobot for, maybe, intending to get the Decepticon they’d given the book to in trouble?

Optimus hadn’t bothered to look at the _title_ of the book in question… Why would the Decepticons have banned a trashy romance novel?

“Well, it’s hardly high literature, but why would it be a threat to the Decepticon cause?” Optimus asked tentatively.

“I can’t imagine you don’t already know!”

“Do the Decepticons have something against bad romance novels?”

“Oh, don’t play innocent, Prime,” Megatron spat. “It contributes to the degeneracy of my forces, and it’s a threat to public safety.”

“A romance novel?” Optimus asked, incredulous. He turned the pad around so Megatron could see the title again, just in case there’d been some kind of misunderstanding. “I admit, it’s unrealistic, deeply flawed, and on many levels anatomically incorrect, but really. A threat to public safety? It’s only entertainment.”

Optimus had done the math on those passages which described the, uh, gladiator’s spike proportions. He had to admit the idea was titillating to read about, but even with mods, a mech of that size wouldn’t have the power differential to be able to maintain full sensation in a spike of those dimensions—

“Anatomically incorrect?” Megatron whispered, lifting himself up to his full height, voice rising in volume. “I’ll show you anatomically incorrect!”

Optimus frowned behind his mask. Why would Megatron take criticism of the book so personally?

“Can you explain—”

“Can I explain? Can I explain!” Megatron shouted. “Really, Prime, this kind of mocking is beneath you. ‘Anatomically incorrect’... well, I suppose you would know, _now,_ wouldn’t you? Before you start in on accusing me of vanity, I’ll have you know we didn’t ban it because it was _about me—”_

 _Aroused by the Savage Gladiator_ was about Megatron?

_About Megatron?_

“You aren’t—you don’t mean—” Optimus reeled. But Megatron breezed past that revelation.

“I banned it because mechs were imitating it and getting themselves horribly injured!”

It was incredible how every time Optimus thought he had figured out how to manage the Megatron situation, whatever it was at the time, Megatron found a way to defy all his expectations.

“But—you aren’t a time traveler!” _Oh wonderful, very eloquent, Optimus._

Megatron paused, turning to look Optimus in the face, giving him a full-body once-over. Optimus hated how Megatron just looking at him made him feel, like a snap-crackle of charge followed the path of Megatron’s optics down his spine.

“You really didn’t know, Prime? I rather thought everyone knew.” Megatron looked at him thoughtfully. “I’ll have to commend Soundwave on his counterintelligence skills. Again.” Then Megatron waved a hand. “And don’t be stupid, Prime, obviously the plot is a complete fabrication.”

Optimus struggled desperately to come up with some kind of response that wasn’t _so then you’ve never interfaced for 36 straight hours_ or _is that really the circumference of your spike_ or _what about the thing you did with the trident._

Optimus hoped the thing with the trident wasn’t real.

Optimus retreated to the relative safety of a work question. “You banned this romance novel, which is about _you,_ because mechs were injuring themselves over it?”

Megatron sighed, and looked, actually, somewhat embarrassed. He frowned and looked at the desk before beginning.

“Early on in the fight, there was this… this predilection, among the Decepticons. To idolize me. It went beyond hero-worship. At first I thought it was harmless—I had been a celebrity of sorts before, in the arena. But some Decepticons started trying to imitate me to an excessive degree. Suddenly there was a sort of black market for information: the layout of my private rooms, how long I spent in the washracks, my favorite kind of polish. Obviously a security risk, on top of being disturbing.”

Megatron tapped his fingers on the desk and gestured at the datapad.

“Then, this book started circulating. Again, I suppose. It was published at the height of my success on the killing floor, and it garnered quite a bit of popularity among my _fans.”_ Megatron said the word like a curse. “The connection to me is fairly obvious—there are even a few direct quotes.”

Optimus felt something wilt, mortified, inside his spark.

Megatron was looking back towards the window now, at the swirl of the nebula outside the ship. He was grimacing. “And then there are the descriptions. The author got a hold of some _inside information,_ if you take my meaning. We still don’t know how, exactly.”

What—what inside information? Had Seducturus been supplied with an… an image capture? Bribed someone for the specs? Had they spoken with someone who’d interfaced with Megatron? Had the _author—_

The book hadn’t been Optimus’s favorite, out of his collection of meaningless escapist fiction, but he had read _Aroused by the Savage Gladiator_ many, many times. It was foolish, and exciting, and, apparently, based on Megatron.

“The ‘Cult of Megatron,’ as Starscream decided to call it, took this filth,” Megatron gestured at the incriminating datapad again, “as a guide to interfacing.”

Optimus had been unknowingly fantasizing about Megatron since before the war.

“Apart from all the inadvisable interfacing practices, notably that thing with the flail, it also led to a trend of—have you actually read it?”

Optimus had thought it was titillating, transgressive when he first read it, and that was before he became Prime. And after, well, the similarities to his ultimate nemesis had been—they’d been minor! But now that he was considering it, he could even pick out from memory which lines were directly lifted from Megatron’s more famous speeches—

Megatron growled at him. “Prime, have you read this book?”

“Yes,” Optimus said faintly, feeling like he was condemning himself. But Megatron didn’t seem affected by his answer, only rolling his eyes a bit.

“Then you’ll remember the section which suggests that the title character is so ancient and—ugh— _savage,_ that he doesn’t have a valve.” Megatron was glaring down at Optimus now.

Optimus did remember that section. He grabbed at the datapad from the desk and flipped through his bookmarks. In the second interfacing scene… There.

Optimus read aloud.

_"Passionwheels looked up from where he was kneeling, desperately aroused, at the feet of his growling, savage lover. The tumescent shadow of his enormous spike seemed to block out the light from overhead—”_

“Prime, this is _not_ necessary—” But Optimus didn’t pay Megatron’s choked commentary any attention, too horrified at seeing the story he remembered so well in a completely different light.

_“And Passionwheels could see the shadowy area tucked between Maximum’s enormous thighs, just behind that delicious, powerfully charged appendage. There was only clean plating there, and Passionwheels wondered if this ancient mech simply had not deigned to possess such a point of weakness as a valve.”_

Megatron was looking at him with wide, more than a little horrified, optics. He ground out, “Yes, that passage.”

After staring for a few moments at Optimus, who felt too stunned by the entire situation to do _anything,_ Megatron spoke again, “The more dedicated ‘cultists’ tried to bribe medics to get rid of their valves or welded their panels shut. They engaged in a series of increasingly ridiculous behaviors that crowded my medbays. It all led to a bizarrely warped attitude towards interfacing that I had to stamp out of the Decepticon ranks with mandatory interfacing education.”

Optimus didn’t know why he was surprised when Megatron had good reasons for the things he did, anymore.

Then Megatron’s faced changed. “Prime, you found that passage in seconds. What were you doing with it, _making notes?”_

Optimus was too tired to prevaricate. Might as well get it over with. “Megatron, I didn’t get this from Ultra Magnus. This is my personal copy.”

Megatron gaped.

Optimus barely noticed. He was too busy with the realization that _he had been unknowingly fantasizing about Megatron since before the war._ Or at the very least, fantasizing about Megatron’s spike.

“What do you mean _that’s your personal copy!”_ Megatron was shouting now.

Optimus sighed. He was a bit too numb to be genuinely mortified, but he could feel the mortification waiting in the wings. _Yesterday,_ he reminded himself, _you walked in on Megatron three fingers deep in his valve. All this will do is even up the playing field._

“I enjoy the occasional piece of escapist fiction. This… novel happens to be part of the collection I had before the war.”

“‘Escapist fiction?’ Is that what they’re calling it now?”

“Yes, something fully ridiculous, only for… fun.” Optimus had been about to say ‘pleasure,’ but thought better of it. “You’re telling me it’s modeled off of _you,_ but so much of the book is straightforwardly impossible. To begin with, only shuttles can have spikes of that size, the—” before Optimus could get out the words ‘power differential’, Megatron was whispering threateningly.

“And how would you know? You’ve never seen it! My spike is _massive,_ Prime!” Megatron, for a split second, seemed to hear the words that had just come out of his mouth, but he recovered.

“Oh, how thoughtless of me.” Megatron had that look on his face that meant he was about to say something cutting. “Prime, have you been missing having time alone to enjoy this _erotic novel_ dedicated to _fetishizing me?”_

Optimus could only blink at him, resetting his optics in the hopes that reality would be different when they came back on.

It was the same, unfortunately.

But his processor had made a connection to something. He was reminded of his, in hindsight insane, suggestion of the previous day that Megatron tell Optimus if he was going to self-service. While Optimus couldn’t dispute the fact that _Aroused by the Savage Gladiator_ was an erotic novel, which Optimus had more than once _enjoyed..._ the truth was that for some time he’d been using romances as an escape rather than a source of excitement.

Megatron must have preferred a regular habit of taking care of his charge, since he’d wanted it enough to risk indulging during their duty shift...

Megatron huffed a quiet, insulting laugh and turned away, like the conversation was over and he’d been the victor.

He’d wanted it enough to take the risk, but Optimus had interrupted him.

Whether or not Megatron had overloaded the day before was suddenly an all-important question in Optimus’s mind. Had Megatron had an overload before Optimus had come in—but no, thinking of Megatron like that, as the type of person who’d indulge himself generously in pleasure, bringing himself to overload again and again, that was too sweet and decadent, too good—Had he kept going after Optimus had left? Had he overloaded after Optimus had looked at him spread out on the berth—had Megatron overloaded while he was still thinking of Optimus?

But if Megatron hadn’t kept going...

Optimus had to know. If Megatron could brag about _the size of his spike_ then how diplomatically inappropriate would it be—

“Did you keep going?” Optimus asked.

Megatron turned and frowned at him.

“After I left, did you keep going?” But Optimus thought, in Megatron’s voice, _Prime, at least bring yourself to use the real words,_ and then, like his brakes had been cut and he just couldn’t stop himself, Optimus kept speaking, “Did you bring yourself to overload after I walked in on you?”

Optimus immediately felt the shift in the air between them, and found he couldn’t look away from the expression on Megatron’s face.

“No,” Megatron said, startled, frowning, like he couldn’t believe he’d answered the question.

But Optimus was too overwhelmed to worry about that, because the answer was _no,_ Megatron had _not—_ and Optimus was sad to let go of that lovely fantasy where he had been partially responsible for Megatron’s overload—but this was so much worse. It felt, irrationally, like a tragedy, and it had been his fault. He’d interrupted. He’d left Megatron, who’d been so wet and wanting and obviously ready, to sit through the slow leeching off of charge—he, Optimus, had left Megatron unsatisfied, and that felt—and that felt totally unacceptable.

Megatron was still staring at him like Optimus had grown a second head.

Optimus could feel his spark shuddering in slight panic. Once more that day, he had to stop himself from reaching for the calming influence of the Matrix. Primus didn’t get a say. Not here.

Optimus let himself look at Megatron, really look at him. The planes and angles of his frame, the power in it. He realized that his resolution to not give in to Megatron’s taunts had been for nothing as soon as he’d walked in the door. Megatron had been defensive instead of flirtatious, angry instead of teasing. Optimus had been caught off guard. And now… Now he wanted to give in.

For all it felt like that exposing question had been the first step, Optimus still asked himself, still hesitated: was he going to act on this attraction? Was he going to, really?

Optimus thought about Megatron’s swollen little valve, how much he wanted to touch it, how much he _wanted_ Megatron. His speculation module was coming up with a _list_ of all the things he wanted to do.

And Optimus thought about the Autobots, about his work, about his duty.

Optimus felt like he was on the edge of something, some precipice, and below him was something terrifying and wonderful, and he would need to fall to reach it.

Finally, Megatron broke the silence with a derisive laugh. “What, can’t bear the thought that I might have enjoyed myself after seeing you, Prime?” There was an edge, a very sharp edge, of anger in his voice. But Optimus saw a glint in Megatron’s optics, something in his stance. “Or were you sorry you missed the show?”

And Optimus decided.

“May I make it up to you?” Optimus said.

Megatron frowned at him again, “What?”

“The overload you missed. May I make it up to you?”

“Have you lost your mind, Prime?”

But then Optimus strode boldly forward into Megatron’s space. Megatron didn’t back away, didn’t retreat. He tilted his chin up and looked down his nose to Optimus, eyes ablaze. It felt bizarrely natural, like they’d danced like this a thousand times before, only with weapons drawn.

_Really, Prime, if you’re going to suggest something so intimate, at least bring yourself to use the real words._

Optimus let his battlemask slide aside. They were face to face now, close enough that Optimus could feel Megatron’s warm ex-vents.

But not touching, very carefully not touching. And still Megatron did not move away.

Even as excitement spread intoxicatingly through him, Optimus spoke calmly,  “May I give you an overload, Megatron?”

Optimus was so close, and attending so well, that he saw the way Megatron’s optics slightly focused open as Optimus drew out the syllables of Megatron’s name, how Megatron looked the barest bit down to Optimus’s mouth.

Megatron sneered, but he didn’t move. “What makes you think you can please me, Prime?”

Always another challenge.

Optimus looked at the strong, silver planes of Megatron’s face. The handsome curve where his optics met his nasal bridge, the firm set of his mouth, the intensity of his gaze. Optimus’s spark throbbed.

_Use the real words._

Perhaps he hadn’t been sufficiently clear. Optimus said, “I want you, and I want to make you overload.”

With only the minutest hesitation, Megatron snapped out, “I suppose you just can’t stop thinking about it, now you’ve gotten a taste—”

“I can’t.” What was the point in holding back now? Megatron only looked at him, almost confused, as Optimus kept speaking. “I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop thinking about how you looked, spread out on the berth like that. I can’t stop thinking—dreaming—of what it would be like to touch you. And I _haven’t_ gotten a taste. _Yet.”_

Megatron shook, visibly, staring. Optimus lifted one hand so it hovered beside Megatron’s cheek, so close but still not touching, and asked, just once more, as earnestly as he could, “Megatron. May I?”

Megatron’s optics stuttered, blinking, and then he was a blur of motion. For the barest moment Optimus thought things had gone so badly he was being _attacked,_ but then there was—then there was Megatron’s _mouth,_ his lips and teeth and tongue, and they were _kissing._

Megatron was _kissing him._

And Optimus found he had one hand cupping Megatron’s face, and the other clutching at Megatron’s waist, and Megatron had wrapped his fingers around the top of Optimus’s windshield and then he’d gotten a firm grip on Optimus’s neck—which shouldn’t have been _good,_ but it was, it was so, so good. Megatron’s hands on him, four fingers curving over his throat and his thumb pressing up underneath Optimus’s jaw, moving his face the way Megatron liked into their kiss.

Optimus could feel a sharp tingle where he touched Megatron’s waist, the crackle of charge under his hands, Megatron’s charge, and Optimus thought _I did that, me, I did that to him._

Optimus growled into it, and revved his engine, and pressed Megatron harder against the desk, even as Megatron held onto his throat and licked at his lips. Optimus slid his hand down from Megatron’s waist to his aft, and thought, intoxicatingly, of what he knew really lay behind the plating between Megatron’s legs. Optimus used his knees to widen Megatron’s stance, and then he slid his hand further, and felt the searing heat of his panel.

Optimus asked for it between kisses, “Would you open for me?” and, for all they were kissing desperately, Optimus was almost surprised when Megatron’s plating transformed aside and suddenly his fingertips were rubbing over plush valve lips.

“Prime,” Megatron said, breathing into the kiss.

“No, I—” Optimus stopped stroking, just briefly, and pulled back enough to look into Megatron’s optics. “Please, just Optimus. Just call me Optimus.”

Megatron stilled, looking at him. Then he was rolling his optics with a performative huff, but Optimus didn’t wait, he dipped a finger lightly inside Megatron’s valve, into tight and wet and heat, and then Megatron moaned, forcing out “Optimus” like it was a curse.

Optimus grinned. Megatron bit at his lips in retaliation, but Optimus couldn’t stop smiling regardless. Then they were kissing again, as Optimus curved that one finger to stroke inside him.

Primus, he was so wet. Impossibly, beautifully wet.  

This was _Megatron,_ with that familiar push and pull, with that familiar dynamic Optimus knew so well. He’d never forgotten the steps to this dance. He had pushed, and won, and Megatron was going to give back in kind. Unless he could preempt him.

Optimus pressed against Megatron’s valve rim with a second finger. There was light resistance, but Optimus stroked the clutching rim, and then he was pressing in, and oh, Megatron made one of those half-choked noises.

Megatron’s optics flickered involuntarily, and then he was growling where their faces were pressed close, “Is that the best you can do?”

Optimus knew it was a goad, but his engine growled in response anyway, and he thrust sharply with the two fingers he had in Megatron’s valve.

That earned him a moan, but Megatron wasn’t done talking. “Well? Are you going to bother opening up or is your spike just that unimpressive?”

Optimus hated that the line worked on him. He’d barely realized he’d opened his panel before his spike was achingly pressurized and pressing up against Megatron’s abdominal plating.

Then Megatron looked down at it—Megatron was _looking at his spike—_ and Optimus felt the valve tighten on his fingers. Megatron opened his mouth to speak, and Optimus had a feeling it was going to be something uncomplimentary, especially given the insane reported dimensions of Megatron’s own spike. But Megatron only made a _sound,_ a wonderful, pleased sound that sent fire tingling through Optimus’s whole body, and he shuttered his optics and rocked back on Optimus’s fingers.

Optimus might have tried to get them to a berth before, but now, no. No, he couldn’t possibly wait.

Optimus pulled his fingers from the soft, wet valve, and, moving his hand up under Megatron’s arm, Optimus broke the now loose grip on his neck. Moving slowly, he put his hands on Megatron’s hips and moved him. Megatron went with the movement, a slightly exasperated look on his face, but he still let Optimus flip him around and then hold him close. They were back to chest now, with Megatron’s hips just lightly in contact with the desk, and Optimus had an arm wrapped around Megatron’s upper body.

“May I, Megatron?”

His spike was pressed up against Megatron’s aft now, and Optimus couldn’t help rocking into the contact suggestively, resting his face on the back of Megatron’s neck.

“Yes, obviously! Get on with it!” Megatron growled at him, voice full of static, and thrust his hips back, grinding on Optimus’s spike.

Optimus moved his arm from around Megatron and used it to press Megatron’s chest down over the desk. Optimus had to stop and just _look,_ at Megatron’s frame, bent over the desk _for him,_ all strength and power and arousal, and his face, the incredible expression, visible where Megatron had turned his head. Megatron grunted in displeasure at the delay, “If you don’t spike me right now—”

Optimus didn’t wait to hear the threat. After a few quick strokes to his spike, he was pressing forward, and _oh,_ it was so good.

Megatron’s valve was wrapped tight around the head of his spike, and Optimus could feel how he was stretching him, the flutters he could feel in the valve rim. Optimus angled his spike down, and _thrust._ The noise Megatron made then, Optimus knew he’d never be able to forget. And Megatron’s hands, pressing against the table, trying to get leverage to push back against him...

Optimus thought of what he’d seen, the way Megatron had used his own fingers on his valve, that rhythm. Optimus thrust deep, and he swore he could feel one of Megatron’s sensor nodes pressed against the head of his spike as Megatron choked out another sound. Two hard thrusts, and then a gentle rocking, just backing off the heights of sensation. Then again, thrust, thrust, _rock._ And over again, two powerful thrusts into the valve, then a slow, shallow slide along Megatron’s nodes, a tease for them both.

All the while Megatron was making those same choked off rumbles that Optimus remembered, and each one made his spike and spark both throb.

Optimus wanted more of those noises, more and louder, so he got a grip on Megatron’s hips and hiked them up higher, and he used a pede to spread Megatron’s legs a bit wider, and then he reached the still-slick fingers of his right hand around his hips to Megatron’s node.

If Optimus could have regretted this moment, he’d have wished he’d taken more time to explore first, to finally get his mouth on that pretty, throbbing little node.

It was almost too much, the way Megatron’s valve clutched at his spike with every slick circle of Optimus’s fingers on his node, the rough noises Megatron made with every thrust. Optimus knew he couldn’t look at Megatron’s half-visible expression again, not if he wanted to last. He needed to last, he needed to see Megatron’s overload and—oh, to have Megatron overloading around his spike.

“Megatron,” Optimus murmured, just to hear the name, to know this was real, and then again, “Megatron.”

Megatron moaned low, rocked his hips back into the the thrusts, and demanded, growling, “Is this the best you have to offer, Optimus? Harder!”

Optimus almost laughed, but the molten heat of challenge and lust was already filling his spark. He wrapped his left arm around Megatron’s chest, getting a good grip.

Then he hauled Megatron bodily back to meet the next thrust of his spike.

The sound that rewarded him was _magnificent._

Optimus leant forward, letting his forehead rest on Megatron’s back as he continued to thrust hard and deep. He kept the same rhythm, holding Megatron tight under him and pulling him back into each stroke. Optimus’s entire world focused down on the tight, throbbing valve around his spike, the swollen node under his fingers, and—he could just feel it—the hot pulsing of the spark in Megatron’s chest.

Optimus couldn’t bear to think that he might not have chosen this path, might not have gotten to have this. Triumph and joy and pleasure surged in him. This—this felt right and good and perfect.

Maybe the Matrix hadn’t been so wrong after all.

 

* * *

 

[Soursoppi](https://twitter.com/soursoppi/status/1079488217810841600) made this stunning art for this chapter and I am _obsessed._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you [entangledwood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eryn/pseuds/entangledwood) and [RHplus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RHplus/works) for making this chapter the best that it can be :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Megatron couldn’t quite understand how he had ended up here: bent over his own desk, and by Optimus Prime of all mechs.

Megatron couldn’t quite understand how he had ended up here: bent over his own desk, and by Optimus Prime of all mechs.

He wasn’t going to stay bent over his own desk, obviously. Megatron was going to move. He was. In just a minute.

But his spike, _Optimus Prime’s spike,_ was just so perfect.

Megatron’s valve was aching and throbbing, there was so much pleasure, and Megatron was tilting his hips back, trying to push against the desk to meet Optimus’s thrusts. The Prime’s hands were heavy and possessive on his hips.

No, not the Prime. _Optimus._ Of course it didn’t matter, really, what Megatron called the glitch: Prime, or Optimus, or demon from the Pit…

But it was strange, how completely he’d miscalculated what the word ‘please’ in Optimus’s mouth would do to him. To begin with, Megatron had imagined that he would be able to respond with _no._

 _Please, just Optimus. Just call me Optimus,_ he’d said. A _please_ from Optimus ought to be part of cowed begging, ideally with Optimus on his knees, not full of this...sincerity. Like Optimus had made his weakness into a gift. And the way that he had smiled, almost wickedly, after Megatron had given in and said his name, that was intoxicating. Whenever Megatron said his name again, he could feel the reaction in the grip of Optimus’s hands, the increased force of his thrusts. Megatron was greedy for that loss of control. Megatron had always been greedy for any loss of control from the Prime.

Megatron moaned and spread his legs wider when Optimus thrust deep.

Optimus had said he’d been thinking about this ever since he’d caught Megatron in their habsuite. Megatron had already known that, of course. He’d realized that Optimus had been aroused by what had happened, but…Optimus admitting as much out loud? Even now, even spread open on the mech’s spike, Megatron could hardly credit it.

_I can’t stop dreaming of what it would be like to touch you._

Optimus had seemed so sure, almost proud, when he said that. Megatron could feel the memory of it making his valve even wetter. It was just too good, too _flattering,_ and Megatron still wasn’t sure allowing Optimus to frag him had been the right decision. Not that he was complaining. It felt too good.

He couldn’t possibly give it up.

Megatron clawed at the desk and tried to get some leverage to push back into Optimus’s thrusts, but the angle was difficult and he couldn’t find purchase against the desk.

When Optimus had asked him, _‘May I, Megatron?’_ there hadn’t been a way out. Say no, and look like some kind of coward, to Optimus and to himself, after all the things he’d thought and said. Say no, and lose the opportunity forever… Say yes, and betray the Decepticon cause? Was what they were doing a betrayal?

All that time spent fantasizing about Optimus Prime and Megatron had never bothered to consider whether he would actually be willing to go through with the idea, not to mention if he _should._

The lure of the secret, traitorous fantasy made real had been irresistible. And once he’d believed Optimus really meant it… Megatron had wanted to know what it would feel like.

So he’d kissed Optimus Prime. Megatron could still taste him on his lips.

It still didn’t feel real.

Even with his head turned to one side against the desk, Megatron could barely see Optimus’s face out of the corner of his optic. He felt a strange longing to just _see him,_ to look at Optimus, at his expression, to prove to himself this was real. More real than just that distinctive voice moaning and speaking low in Megatron’s audial, more real than the blue-plated hands Megatron could see gripping his hips. More real than the hard spike sliding into him, brimming with charge.

Real enough to overpower the niggling doubt rising in his processor. After all, Optimus had a _personal_ copy of that horrible novel. That horrible, insulting novel, so what if—

No, he wouldn’t, Megatron wouldn’t consider that now. It felt too good. This felt too good to ruin with second thoughts. And Optimus had said that he hadn’t known. He’d wanted this before he’d known about the book. That was true. Megatron had seen his reaction to Megatron in the staff meeting: the Prime’s plating had been crawling with charge. It was real. It was real and Optimus meant it.

But _bent over his own desk_ was not a dignified position.

He would get up and then he would _ride_ this glorious spike instead, with Optimus beneath him, just as any Prime ought to be. He just had to relinquish this beautiful sensation—just for a moment, just—Optimus was using an incredible, not-quite-teasing rhythm and, oh it was so good, but really, really this was not a fitting position.

But Megatron’s valve throbbed and tightened at the mere thought of being neglected now. Megatron squeezed around that spike, and Optimus made a rough, incredible noise, like he was in pleasurable agony.

Optimus was still speaking a litany of nonsense in that unfairly deep voice. Megatron would swear it shared some kind of resonance with his interface array, because it didn’t matter _what_ the Prime said, it still made Megatron’s valve throb.

When Megatron had first seen the Prime’s spike he’d _known_ it would be perfect. He’d intended to say something provocative but cutting about it, but instead he’d made that embarrassing noise... The spike was smaller than average for Optimus’s frame size, smaller than he’d expected, thankfully. Just big enough to make Megatron feel full, but small enough to be taken easily. He wouldn’t have to be careful—they could be as rough as they wanted, and he didn’t have to worry about pain in his sensitive mesh.

It was honestly infuriating, how perfect Optimus’s spike was. Absolutely, unfairly, perfect. Really, how dare Optimus have a spike like this. It was a bit flashy, all red and blue and silver, and Megatron couldn’t believe he liked that so much. It was the opposite of a design Megatron would have chosen for himself.

Optimus was speeding up now, and the sensation was almost confusing, it was so good. That lovely, _gaudy_ spike had a ridge on one side that Megatron could feel pressing, just pressing so perfectly into him.

And then, just when Megatron was thinking _now, now, get up, turn around, and lay the Prime out on this desk so you can use his spike properly,_ Optimus moved his hand inwards and down and pressed searchingly for Megatron’s anterior node.

Of course he was a generous lover, the glitch—and coordinated too. Optimus was stroking and circling Megatron’s node, and his fingers were still wet with lubricant for a sweet and slick slide over Megatron’s sensors. And Optimus wasn’t rushing—Megatron could feel each stroke on his throbbing node and each pass over the node brought his anticipation and his charge to new heights.

Megatron knew he was making some kind of noise, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

The pleasure was all-encompassing, washing over him in rhythmic waves. Optimus’s fingers drawing circles on his node spread fire through his circuits, and those thrusts jolted him and stretched him and stroked into his valve and brought all that Matrix-forged power to bear just for him, for Megatron. It was humiliatingly good, how Optimus’s every movement sent Megatron’s charge soaring.

But really, wasn’t this so much better? Megatron _deserved_ to be brought inexorably to overload like this. The Prime—Optimus—should be the one putting in all the effort, and Megatron could just enjoy. No work, no awkward twisting of his arm to get his fingers inside himself, just this, Optimus’s hands and _wonderful_ spike filling him, Optimus murmuring his name... Really, Megatron was still in control. It was just as easy to goad Optimus here as it had ever been on the battlefield. Megatron felt it all by instinct, how far he would have to push to get what he wanted, how far would be too far.

“Is this the best you have to offer, Optimus? Harder!” Megatron demanded.

And it worked as it always did, and so much better than Megatron had expected. At first Optimus actually slowed down, getting his left arm under Megatron’s chest, but just as Megatron was getting ready to complain, Optimus used that leverage to pull him back into the next thrust.

Megatron could hardly think for the pleasure. His optics flickered and shuttered.

Every sensation was focused on the spike inside him. Each slide in was so slick and hard and deep and easy—easy like Optimus had been made for this—and when Megatron squeezed around that spike there was the sweetest drag against his nodes. Optimus was still holding him tight, pulling him into each thrust, and still rubbing and flicking at his anterior node, and oh, this was _exactly_ what he needed.

Megatron growled out, “Don’t you dare stop, Optimus!”

He didn’t stop, he kept the rhythm, building the pleasure up and up as he kept pressing in and in and inside Megatron. And then he was murmuring into Megatron’s audial, “I won’t stop. _Megatron,_ I won’t stop. I want to watch you overload for me, I want to feel your overload around my spike—”

And there was more, all murmured to him in that dangerously deep voice, a rush of words that Megatron was too far gone to process, but he kept hearing ‘mine, you’re mine’ and ‘Megatron,’ drawn out in this awed, gasping voice, like Optimus was savoring the sound—but that didn’t matter, how could that matter, when his processor was drowning in sensation and he was chasing, grasping for overload. From the sound of Optimus’s voice, and the way his hands were shaking and his thrusts were going irregular, Optimus was with him on the edge.

Megatron onlined his optics again and started to turn his neck to try and look at Optimus, to _see_ him when he overloaded, but something was strange... The glowing colors from the nebula seemed to move over the desk, shifting, swirling, like a mirror of Megatron’s whirling spark. That hadn’t been happening before.

Then there was a strange, angry beeping sound, almost like—almost like the lock on the door.

Then _Starscream_ burst into the room, shrieking.

 

* * *

 

Megatron’s processor switched gears painfully, and not quickly enough. For a moment, he could only stare at the intruder. Starscream looked singed?

Once Starscream _saw them,_ he made a noise that might have been, “Oh Primus, what the frag!”

White-hot rage rushed over Megatron, and he started to direct power to his fusion cannon—his fusion cannon, which was leaning against the desk. Dammit. And Optimus was still uniquely positioned to hold him down at the moment. Yelling it would have to be.

“How did you get in here?” Megatron bellowed over Starscream’s screaming curses.

Optimus went for the more direct approach, sounding only slightly strangled, ”Get out of our habsuite, Starscream.”

The charge in Megatron’s frame and suffusing his array almost burned with what he’d been denied.

At some point Optimus had moved his hand and his talented fingers—Megatron was furious about how talented—up and off of Megatron’s node. Megatron almost wished he hadn’t, just so he’d have _something_ on his node instead of this absence of sensation.  

Though, _Starscream was here_ and that was _awful._ Starscream had an effect on Megatron’s libido like a jump into freezing cold oil.

Oh, he was hideously angry.

Starscream was babbling now, almost angry himself, and how he thought he had the right to be angry with _them—”_ I wish i could leave, you have no idea, but we have more important things to worry about than your…your personal life? What even is this—”

“Starscream, this is uncomfortable enough, _now get out—”_ Optimus growled.

“You!? _You’re_ uncomfortable? _I_ am going to be mentally scarred for the rest of my function!”

Optimus made a garbled, suspiciously laugh-like noise.

Megatron twisted around and slapped at Optimus’s left arm, moving it from around Megatron’s chest and trying to get Optimus to stand back up. Unfortunately, the movement shifted Optimus’s spike, which was _still inside him_ and they both froze. Right.

“No! Don’t, ugh, don’t separate, I don’t need to see _that.”_ Not that Starscream could see much when their hips were still locked together and the desk was blocking the front of Megatron’s array. “Once was enough.”

Megatron did not want to remember _that,_ especially not right now.

“Starscream,” Megatron growled, trying for his most intimidating glare, and feeling all the indignity of his current… position.

He and Starscream had once tried working out their interpersonal tension in a more creative way.

Just. Once.

Never, ever again. To begin with, Megatron had not enjoyed the trip to the medbay that had followed.

“And, heh, Lord Megatron, this isn’t how I expected to have you bowing to me one day, but I’ll take what I can get.” Starscream grinned disgustingly and gestured at Megatron’s position half on top of the desk.

Megatron growled, and just as he was opening his mouth to start on an appropriately serious threat, Optimus was moving. His left hand released Megatron’s hip, and Megatron couldn’t see, but there was a not exactly uncomfortable jolt in his valve as Optimus twisted his torso, and at the same time a sound, a sound like…

Megatron craned his neck to see—the Prime’s blaster charged and pointed at Starscream’s face.

_Thrice-damned glitch of a Prime!_

What, like Megatron wasn’t going to handle it himself? Like Megatron couldn’t handle a low blow from Starscream? This wasn’t even the worst of the personal insults Starscream had traded with him over the years!

Not that it didn’t sting. But the situation was what was wretched, not whatever Starscream decided to say about it. Him _knowing._ Hell, _Optimus Prime knowing,_ and he was a participant! The indignity of it all— _bent over his own desk—_ and somehow his traitorous frame was _still aroused._

And where the hell did the Prime get off _defending Megatron?_

Immediately, Starscream shrieked, even louder this time—the coward had never been able to stand his ground against the Prime—and blurted out, “The Quints are here!”

“What!” they both shouted, but Starscream was babbling on.

“We really had no idea that it would interact with the nebula that way, really, this reaction was totally unpredictable—even Wheeljack agrees—and uh, the good news is part of their fleet got caught in it, even—” and then Starscream gestured towards their viewport, the purge of words continuing.

Megatron took his optics off Starscream to look—always a bad idea, but Optimus still had the blaster trained on him which was defense enough—and he saw…

He saw…

Megatron shoved himself up from the desk until he was more or less upright, still intimately connected to his erstwhile nemesis.

Optimus made an unnatural, pained noise, and his right hand convulsed on Megatron’s hip. Megatron squashed a feeling of reluctance for having to give up that spike for the moment.

“We can assign blame for your idiocy later,” Megatron ordered. “Scramble your seekers, and put Wheeljack to work on firing that weapon again, but intentionally this time. Now, GET OUT!”

Outside the viewport, where moments ago the bright colors of the nebula had been glowing gently, there was now a maelstrom. The luminescent magenta gases of the nebula around the ship and the dark, light-absorbent areas of total blackness had coalesced into a winding vortex. It looked like everything was being pulled, stretched, the twisting mass drawing down to a point like matter flowing into the event horizon of a black hole.

Megatron couldn’t see the event horizon of this phenomenon, where the cone shape originated, but the angle and perspective made it clear it was coming from the _Nemesis_ itself.

Some areas of the phenomenon did not look like they’d once been nebular. They looked metallic, and some were strange colors. Megatron could see the winking lights of stars revealed where part of the nebula had been. They hadn’t seen stars like that in weeks.

And there, revealed in the glimpse of normal space, was a distant line of Quintesson battle cruisers.

Starscream was a blur going out of the door.

Megatron pushed blindly at Optimus, who was taking in the view outside, his horrified look a match for Megatron’s own feelings. Finally, Optimus withdrew, both hands and spike. Vengefully, and not a little longingly, Megatron tightened around the spike as it left him. He was rewarded with another delightful noise.

“You didn’t approve an experiment with this weapon, did you?”

“No, I certainly did not,” Optimus said, failing to clear the static from his voice.

“It seems the ‘Space Squeezer’ has skipped the testing phase.” Why did he ever let Starscream name things? “Has Ultra Magnus implemented the new atmospheric perimeter yet?”

“I’m contacting him now.” Optimus produced a cleaning cloth from his subspace and passed it over.

“At least we have a plan,” Megatron murmured. They’d gotten that much resolved the day before. He pulled up his internal comm system, noticing several alerts from Soundwave that he had been too insensate to notice…during.

::Soundwave, report.:: Megatron opened a group channel, including Optimus and the other high command officers, as he tried to wipe the lubricant from his inner thighs. It would be uncomfortable to close his panel while he was still so excited, but there was no helping that. He wouldn’t have as much trouble as Optimus at least, since he hadn’t pressurized his spike. That offered some comfort.

Soundwave’s report came within moments, providing an estimate of firepower and crew complement for the Quintesson ships, and both of them frowned in response.

They obviously didn’t have time to get all traces of the mess off their plating, so this would have to do. Hopefully in the midst of the crisis no one would look too close. Megatron tossed the rag back to Optimus diffidently as he finished, and then he opened his mouth to speak.

But Optimus was on him before he could make a sound.

It was…a kiss. Open-mouthed, greedy, quick. Like Optimus was tasting him.

The glitch.

Optimus pulled away, and Megatron rolled his optics at him. Optimus just smiled, which, ugh. Megatron resolutely did not smile back.

Moments later the blasted battle mask was up again, and they were both moving swiftly towards the bridge, discussing the contents of Soundwave’s report. That special rush of battle was filling him now, thrumming and sweet. It was mixing with the charge already in his lines, creating an intoxicating cocktail.

Megatron hated _surprises_ like this, the battles he couldn’t see coming, but somehow, looking at Optimus beside him, against all logic, he could feel victory within their grasp.

 

* * *

 

Reports poured in from their subordinates.

Starscream and Wheeljack had ‘unintentionally’ activated the new weapon during some ‘tinkering,’ and it had worked even better than expected. Or, more accurately, it had worked even _more_ than they’d expected. Wheeljack was delighted that the technology worked on the gases of the nebula as well as on solid objects: ”None of our calculations told us this might happen! Prime, I want to do more experiments to discover the implications for our understanding of matter’s relationship to space!”

Megatron and Optimus were not delighted with that effect.

The _Nemesis_ was exposed to the dangers of open space once more, and the Quintessons had not been asleep at their sensor stations. With their shelter stripped from them, they had been seen immediately, and the Quintesson ships were moving to intercept them.

Wheeljack had kindly reassured them that the poor nebula had only lost a quarter of its mass.

No longer impeded by the effects of the nebula, Soundwave was trying valiantly to bring long distance communications online. There most likely would not be time for help to arrive, but Megatron and Optimus had prepared an emergency communique for this exact situation. And, if they did manage to hold out long enough for reinforcements, so much the better. They still had a fighting chance, and Megatron was hardly going to go quietly.

Nevertheless, they had prepared instructions for their remaining forces in the event of the loss of the _Nemesis_ and its crew.

The one piece of good news was the damage the weapon had done to the Quintesson battle cruisers before the Cybertronians had even known they were there.

Starscream, and later Wheeljack, once Starscream had come to find them, had counted as many as five Quintesson ships, over half the forces that had been lying in wait for the _Nemesis,_ which had been sucked in and destroyed by the Space Squeezer. At least, Megatron hoped they were destroyed. No one had been able to tell him exactly what happened to the relevant matter once it had been ‘squeezed.’

At minimum, those Quint ships were ‘no longer a problem,’ but Wheeljack had been strictly ordered not to activate the weapon within the _Nemesis_ ever again. From now on, all use of the weapon would be from _outside the Nemesis,_ and pointing very carefully _away from the ship._

 _If_ they could activate it again, which no one seemed confident about.

Megatron and Optimus were on the bridge, furiously examining reports and barking orders to subordinates of both factions, trying to determine the current capabilities of the ship, and, most importantly, how long it would stay in one piece during a firefight.

“We can’t manage against all four remaining ships at once, Megatron, not in combat in open space,” Optimus said.  

“Agreed. But we may not have a choice.”

Ultra Magnus approached the single captain’s chair where he and Optimus Prime were standing. “Sirs,” he began, delightfully respectful as always. “The Constructicons report that the final bulkhead adjustments are approximately ten minutes from completion. Once that has been finished, the adjusted atmospheric perimeter of the ship’s interior will be secure. All personnel have been evacuated from unsecured areas.”

“Good work,” Megatron said, watching the battle cruisers visible in the ship’s viewport. “But we may not have ten minutes.” They were still quite small, but gaining in size quickly. Thankfully, it would be too risky for the Quintessons to make a hyperspace jump over such a short distance in space that tight.

Megatron commed Soundwave with a request for a more concrete estimate of when they would reach firing range. Megatron’s third in command was in the communications hub, trying to force their long-range communications systems to work faster while simultaneously liaising with all the ship’s different departments, as he usually did in battle.

The sooner they could connect with the rest of their forces the better.  

Optimus frowned, then said, “Ultra Magnus, get Wheeljack to get back on his comm. I know he’s busy, but we have to know if the hyperdrive will be ready in time. Tell him to guess at the amount of time even.”

Ultra Magnus hesitated, “Prime, guessing is—”

“That’s an order, Magnus.”

Megatron almost smiled.

Ultra Magnus left them, on his way to corral Wheeljack and the rest of their science team.

“You agree that if we can make the jump to hyperspace before they reach us, we must?” Megatron asked Optimus.

“Yes. Even if navigation can’t manage more than a rough heading, retreat is advisable. And we should be able to contact help from wherever we find ourselves. With the shields down for the jump, if the Quints come in range we’ll be sitting ducks,” Optimus responded, opaquely.

“Ducks?”

“Ah, never mind. It’s an Earth idiom.”

Megatron harrumphed. What was wrong with Cybertronix? “With the shields down—”

“We’d be vulnerable. And once battle is engaged, even with the shields up—”

“Yes, no maneuverability. They’ll be able to flank us.”

Optimus considered. “Weapons?”

“The rear-mounted torpedos, as well as the forward batteries—”

“Batteries of energy weapons, yes, I see that in the Constructicons’ report.”

“If the ship is boarded again, Prime, the battle will be as good as lost,” Megatron said.

It felt strange to call him by his title again. Preparing for battle, standing straight and stoic, and frowning at the bridge viewport, Optimus looked as impenetrable and untouchable as ever. With the mask activated and bright battle intensity in his optics…he was every inch a Prime. _Optimus._

Megatron remembered briefly the way he had growled Megatron’s name, during—

But no, best not think of that now.

And Megatron did not know how to reconcile the calm, controlled Prime before him now with—with Optimus. It all felt unreal. There had always been that well of fury, of emotion, that Megatron could just glimpse on the battlefield. And the capacity in the Prime for embarrassment, which Megatron had more recently discovered… But seeing him so undone!

Before today, even the slightest tell, the slightest break in the veneer of calm, had been a victory for Megatron. The twitch of blue finials, the reluctant smiles, the disapproving frowns. Since they’d begun this bizarre habsuite experiment, there had been more and more breaks in the mask. More and more expressiveness from the Prime.

And now, after…it was so deliciously intoxicating, Megatron almost couldn’t stand it.

“Yes, Megatron, I agree,” Optimus continued. He was still looking out through the viewport. Quietly, he added, “If the _Nemesis_ is boarded, we’ll do what needs to be done?”

“Yes.” Megatron was quiet for a moment. “We’ll go down with the ship. Everything is ready. The explosion can be triggered from the bridge.”

Then Megatron continued, “The nebula is close enough that short range shuttles and escape pods should be able to hide there for at least a little while. The seekers will have the best chance, of course, but even then, the Quintessons will know their entrance trajectories. Reinforcements might just be close enough, but we have no way of knowing that.”

It was a solemn moment, discussing the worst case scenario that looked more and more likely, but Megatron could see in Optimus’s optics that his expression was changing behind his battlemask. He looked almost soft, instead of sad.

“I don’t believe it will come to that,” he said.

Megatron huffed a disbelieving ventilation. “If you can see a path out of our predicament I’d love to know it.”

“No, no,” Optimus replied, “No, I don’t know how we’re going to survive this. I just...think that we will.”

“Is this some of your Matrix nonsense? A prophecy from Primus?”

Sometimes Megatron forgot that the Prime was also a religious lunatic.

Oh, Optimus was definitely smiling now. He was even wincing a little. Hm. “No, I’m afraid not. It’s only that I don’t believe the universe could be so cruel.” He turned to look at Megatron, still with that softened expression in his optics.

“What do you mean?”

“If we both died today, after so long.” If Megatron hadn’t known better, he’d have thought Optimus looked mischievous at that moment. Optimus continued, “Terribly unfair under the circumstances, wouldn’t you think?”

Oh.

Oh, that glitch.

Megatron spluttered with static, half laughter and half shock. That was…that was—well, it would be terribly unfair, wouldn’t it.

He deserved to get that overload, after all.

The moment broke when Wheeljack finally got back on the command comm channel and they both focused on their tactical situation again.

::I’ve got good news and bad news,:: Wheeljack said. Megatron rolled his optics. Wheeljack was too much like Starscream, never getting to the point.

::We hear you, Wheeljack,:: the Prime responded.

::The bad news is I’ve gotta have an hour to get the hyperdrive into a state where the ship won’t fly apart first thing.::

::We haven’t got an hour, Autobot,:: Megatron sent.

Optimus glanced at him, then asked, ::Wheeljack, is there any possibility we could make a jump in the next ten minutes?::

::Primus no, Prime. I mean, sure, we could, but I’d call it at 50/50 odds for us being split apart at the atomic level.::

Off the comm, Megatron cursed.

“We can’t—” Optimus said to Megatron then, but Megatron waved him off.

“Yes, I know. The risk isn’t worth it.” Megatron pursed his lips. He could feel the familiar specter of death, coming to claim them.

::Wheeljack, what’s the good news?:: Optimus asked.

::Ah, yes, right! The good news is the Space Squeezer! No guarantees, but I think we’ll be able to fire it again, at least once. Possibly twice, and to the same effect!::

Optimus’s optics lit up bright, looking to Megatron. Megatron smiled at him, saying aloud, “We haven’t escaped the snare yet.”

Wheeljack was still going on comms. ::The aim could be better, but there’s not time to fix that. It’s a precision instrument, capable of affecting only very small areas, but right now it’s pretty much a point and shoot weapon. No integrated targeting system. I’m trying to jury rig something with the ship’s computer, but I may not be able to get it up in time.::

::When will it be ready to fire again?::

::In the next couple minutes, definitely. I’ll let you know. But if you’re thinking of trying to squeeze more of those Quints, we won’t be able to for a while,:: Wheeljack answered. ::The numbers suggest that the outsize effect we saw was a—a sort of backlash from the gravitational forces in the nebula. When part of the nebula was squeezed, it created a sort of—well not sort of, it did create a vacuum. Which expanded the effect of the device, but in this super interesting way—it actually created ripples in the fabric of—::

::Yes, yes,:: Megatron interrupted. ::Are you saying it won’t have that kind of range again?::

::Yes, exactly. I can get you a couple miles of range for right now, and more of course, once we perfect it—::

::Fine. But if we get them in range for you, the weapon will be able to ‘squeeze’ Quintesson ships again? Is there a limit on how many?::

::Oh, definitely! There’s the problem of range, but also the surface area—well it’s not exactly surface area, but the amount of space that—::

::Send Soundwave the exact numbers, get back to work on the hyperdrive, and await further orders regarding the weapon.::

::Uh, sure, Megatron.::

::Thank you, Wheeljack,:: Optimus said.

Immediately, Optimus turned to him, saying, “Well? Didn’t I tell you?”

“It’s a coincidence, obviously.” But Megatron smiled a bit anyway. It wouldn’t be easy, but they had a way out of this situation. Fighting for his life was always sufficient motivation for Megatron, but getting back to their hab, alone, with Optimus Prime... Well, it certainly added some incentive.

 

* * *

 

When the Quintesson ships came close enough, Starscream and his seekers met them in open space. Megatron watched them, silent, from the viewport on the bridge. Optimus was by his side, talking quietly with Ultra Magnus.

Around them was a flurry of activity. The status of the shields was updated audibly by a petty officer every few seconds. Navigation and the pilot on duty kept a running tab on the limited success of their attempts to shift the ship’s position. Everywhere preparations were being made and coordinated for the eventual—Megatron hoped—jump to hyperspace. Reminders of evacuation procedures were also being transmitted across the ship, preparing the crew for every eventuality.

Then, the moment they got in range the Quints opened fire on the _Nemesis._

No damage reports yet, but it was only a matter of time.

They were keeping a comm line open with Starscream as he gave brisk orders to his trine and the rest of the seekers.

Dodging fire from, and collision with, the short-range Quintesson drones, the seekers were weaving and cork-screwing through space, making quick strafing runs across a particular one of the four Quintesson battle cruisers. The bright flashes of energy weapons could be seen visually, and three-dimensional models of the battle were depicted on screens and in holograms around them.

As the Quint ships began making evasive maneuvers, the seekers’ efforts shifted, weighted towards the starboard side of the _Nemesis._

One Quint ship was being split off from the rest of the group, evading the barrage of Starscream’s forces by moving around to starboard, as the remaining three closed ranks to flank the _Nemesis_ on it’s less-defended port side.

Soon everything would be in position.

Another forward laser battery on the fourth Quintesson ship went up in an explosion.

As some of the soldiers on the bridge reacted with excitement at each successful aerial feat from their comrades on the viewscreen, Ultra Magnus spoke low to Optimus, “It is still strange to me, experiencing the technical skill and battlefield success of the Decepticon seeker squadron as a positive instead of a negative.”

The corners of Megatron’s mouth twitched up with pride. He didn’t wait to hear Optimus’s response, and sent a comm. ::Report, Wheeljack. Is your team in position?::

::Sure are. Ready when you are.::

Ultra Magnus announced, “Sirs, we have, at most, six minutes of shield integrity remaining.”

“That should be enough, given how they’re moving,” Optimus said.

“Yes sir,” responded Ultra Magnus. “If they maintain this course, the three Quintesson ships will be in position off our starboard side in 23 seconds.”

Megatron grinned, and sent Starscream a message, ::Will your seekers be able to finish off the drones and onboard weaponry of that ship in under five minutes?::

::Why do you always doubt me? Once we can focus on it, yes, obviously.:: Starscream’s response came over the open command channel.

Immediately, Optimus asked, “Magnus, tell us the moment they’re in the window.”

Megatron turned to his counterpart and asked, “Well, shall you give the order or shall I?”

Optimus was standing tall and proud, as pleased as Megatron was with their crew’s performance. “It’s your plan. You’re welcome to do the honors,” Optimus said.

“Ah, well—”

“Sir, the targets are in range!”

Megatron grinned viciously, and ordered, ::Wheeljack! Fire the weapon!::

From his position at an airlock on the port side of the _Nemesis,_ Wheeljack replied, ::Actually it isn’t the sort of thing that’s fired, it’s more that it’s—::

::Tell us later!:: Starscream chimed in.

::Oh! Yes, right. Firing now.::

The team on the bridge could see the visual come up on the screen. Three Quintesson ships, lined up on their port side, still moving, still firing on the ship. For several moments nothing happened, and Megatron and Optimus shared a moment of very still eye contact. Then, just as Megatron was preparing the words in his processor to give the general order to evacuate…

Something changed.

It was quite subtle at first, and several on the bridge reset their optics. The three hideous battle cruisers were _stretching._ They were elongating, pushed and pulled and distorted. If Megatron hadn’t just given the order, he would have imagined that what he was seeing was an illusion.

Slowly, the three ships began to twine around each other, twisting, pulling in towards the _Nemesis._ It was bizarrely beautiful.

Megatron got back on the comm to Starscream. ::Hurry up and disable the fourth ship before it realizes what it’s looking at.::

Megatron looked at Optimus Prime and smiled.

They’d won.

 

* * *

 

Megatron didn’t enjoy space battles nearly as much as he did the excitement of the battlefield itself. It was so much more visceral, being able to see your opponents and take their heads off yourself. He hated feeling trapped on the ship, waiting for each volley, and unable to fight with his own hands, his own body.

They were going to get their chance at some real combat now. The fourth Quintesson ship was effectively disabled, but still functional. If they wanted to take it for parts, they’d need to eradicate the current occupants.

He and Optimus were waiting in the hanger bay with two battlegroups of their forces. The flight-capable mechs were preparing to launch as a section of the seeker armada returned to the ship to serve as an escort. The two leaders were waiting for an assist from Skywarp.

::So, Lord Megatron, you gonna let the big truck pull your trigger?::

Starscream’s thankfully private comm jolted Megatron out of his reverie. He shot back with a creative suggestion regarding Starscream’s wings and a trash compactor.

Megatron had almost managed to forget that _Starscream had walked in on them._

Megatron especially hated that the answer to that question was yes, he was planning on fighting in gun mode. With Optimus. He was looking forward to it, even.

Dammit, but the post-battle debrief was going to be hell.

::Yeah, yeah,:: Starscream whined. ::Just, don’t do something stupid like trust him, Mighty Megatron.::

::I haven’t forgotten,:: Megatron shot back. His spark twisted.

Never trust an Autobot.

But, maybe, for this…for pleasure and sweetness and honor, he could. Maybe.

Skywarp _vwopped_ into the hanger in front of them, and without a second thought Megatron transformed into Optimus’s waiting hands. Then Skywarp transported them both into the belly of the Quintesson ship.

 

* * *

 

Megatron was jubilant. There had been something wild in his spark during this battle. They had defied the odds, again.

Optimus had always been an expert marksman, and he had fired Megatron in gun form with all of his skill and precision. It had been a delight to watch these most hated of organics fry.

It was hardly the first time Optimus had fired him—there had even been a few times before their alliance—but today, those hands directing his frame felt very different. Almost caressing, though Megatron suspected that was an illusion. Optimus’s handling of him had always felt sure, secure, easy, unhesitating, but now all those things electrified him with a combination of pride and longing.

Megatron had needed to push down the thought that Optimus’s hands were probably still covered in traces of his own lubricant, or he’d have gotten too distracted and lost track of their surroundings.

In the close quarters fighting within the corridors of the Quintesson ship, he’d had to transform back into root mode, bringing his fusion cannon to bear, or crushing the many-headed technorganic mongrels with his own hands. When a ranged weapon was needed, he had transformed back without a thought, and Optimus had caught him without a word.

Oh, but it had been a glorious fight.

They had taken the ship readily enough. The Quintessons were not skilled in hand to hand combat, though they carried some quite nasty weapons. The drones were the greater danger, but as their forces had discovered months before, the battle cruisers kept the drones all in stasis in a specific hanger in the lower part of their ships. The rest of the Cybertronian forces, led by Skywarp, had been able to keep them in a bottleneck in that hanger and pick them off while preventing them from engaging in the main fight. Meanwhile, Megatron, with Optimus, had taken the bridge and shut the drones down from there.

Now, back on the bridge of the _Nemesis,_ still battle-singed and splattered with organic gore, Megatron’s frame fairly thrummed with satisfaction.

Optimus was leaning over a console, watching the report of what they’d been able to scavenge from the Quintesson ship come in—the ship had a name, but Megatron didn’t bother remembering it.

Optimus stood up and looked back at Megatron. He said, “It’s just as we’d hoped—”

Just then, Starscream’s exuberant comm came over the command channel, ::Wheeljack says we’ve got it! Two of them! Two intact piezo transducers!::

Then Wheeljack added, almost as an afterthought, ::We definitely won’t be ripped apart in hyperspace now!::

::Shut up, Wheeljack! My repairs were perfect!::

Ultra Magnus loomed from somewhere behind Megatron, asking, “Did Starscream not tell us that the danger would _not_ be materially increased by using the damaged transducer—”

Megatron laughed, interrupting him. “Yes, Magnus. So he did. We’ll leave his reprimand for that omission in your capable hands, hm?”

Ultra Magnus nodded seriously.

Megatron continued, “I want the science team focused on using those materials to repair the hyperdrive fully. Optimus, do you concur?”

Using the name ‘Optimus’ aloud felt irrationally intimate to Megatron now.

“Yes, of course. Thank you, Magnus,” Optimus replied. A dismissal.

The Autobot second moved away towards his own station.

Optimus came close to Megatron until he could feel the slight heat coming off Optimus’s plating. Optimus was smiling so wide it reached his optics above the mask. “We did it. Didn’t I tell you?” he said.

Megatron harrumphed, amused despite himself, and pursed his lips. _"We_ triumphed today, not fate or ‘the universe.’”

His optics quirked, but Optimus didn’t push the topic. “Full debrief in an hour?” the Prime asked.

“Hm. Yes. Let’s move the ship back into the nebula in the meantime. We may need to expect Quintesson reinforcements, or someone coming to investigate the bite we took out of this stellar landmark.”

“Agreed. But as soon as the hyperdrive—”

“Yes, I concur. We’ll leave as soon as we are able.”

“And with the new crystals, we won’t be limited to one jump. I’m thinking the base outside Athenia.”

“Hm. Yes. They should be prepared to handle ship repairs of this magnitude.” Megatron looked down at himself. The scrapes and singes were a point of pride…but the organic gore was not. “I require a shower.”

Megatron turned to make for the door, but Optimus stopped him, saying, “I’d like to address the bridge crew before we go. Their shift will change soon and they deserve credit for their hard work.”

Megatron shrugged. Autobots.

But Optimus had implied that they would be going back to their hab, together, and Megatron quite enjoyed that implication, so he was content to wait.

Megatron watched as Optimus stepped back towards the center of the bridge. Optimus was just as dirtied up from the fighting as himself, and Megatron almost enjoyed the sight of him more for it. The thrill of fighting beside the mech was mixing in Megatron’s spark with the delicious memories from only a short time ago. They might have time before the meeting. All that battle lust took on a new light when he was looking at Optimus.

The Prime had taken a strong stance behind the captain’s chair, and the overhead lights were glinting off the peaks of his blue finials. Almost just by taking that position he began to gather the attention of the bridge crew, but then he reset his vocalizer and began, “Everyone, if I could have your attention.”

There was the usual gentle sternness in Optimus’s manner. Megatron’s moments of greatest anger were sometimes whispered, but he had never had this talent of commanding attention quietly. His mere presence drew respect and consideration, but that didn’t have the intentionality of what Optimus was doing now. It was the sort of technique that should not have worked. The sort of technique which only worked because of Optimus’s unique qualities.

“Autobots, Decepticons. Cybertronians,” Optimus began. “Our joint efforts today have led to the survival of this ship and crew in the face of our greatest enemy. I’m very proud. Thank you for giving your all today.”

Optimus was sturdy, like a mountain. Tall, strong, the immovable object. Megatron thought for a moment how different Optimus was from the previous Primes. They had been much more decorative, without the core of true, physical strength. Not that Optimus wasn’t also…decorative, to Megatron’s mind. But he wasn’t that alone. Megatron wondered if he’d had his frame rebuilt after the war broke out for that reason.

“While this is not our first battle together on this ship, or our first battle as a people united, your cooperation and determination inspire me. We have not finished our war against the Quintessons. More will be required of all of us before the end. But now, more than ever, I have hope for the future.”

Here Optimus turned back to look at Megatron, giving a wide sweep of his arm to indicate his co-leader. There was that shape to his optics that meant a hidden smile, again. “The future is unknown. But we walk into it as one people, together, and not apart.”

Optimus—

Optimus was—

“It is my hope that we won’t have to be apart again.”

And Optimus turned back to face their crew.

He was _assuming—_

“‘Til all are one,” the Prime said. And the speech was finished.

Something unraveled within Megatron’s spark. Something triumphant and hopeful and pathetically soft, dissolving. There was a sensation, like he was falling, as the about-face of his emotions made his spark twist. Just moments before, they’d been smiling and celebrating their victory, like equals, like a team, and it had felt like anything was possible. Now, he was sinking, plummeting, from anticipation into—

Foolish, foolish! He knew better than to be so foolish.

He had _known_ what he was. He had always known.

_You fool._

But he’d bought in. He, Megatron, had _forgotten._ He’d bought in to the pretty words. He’d bought in to the play pretend. He’d bought in to this horribly _painful_ new game the Prime was playing.

Megatron had thought better of Optimus. He really had. And didn’t that sting all by itself.

Optimus _Prime._

Megatron had been convinced, if briefly. Megatron had been swayed and—and _wooed._ He’d been convinced that something so intimate couldn’t be another Autobot gambit. The desire in his eyes, in his kiss, and the things he’d said… Megatron had been convinced that there was sincerity—

Probably that ridiculous book had pushed the Autobot to even begin to imagine stomaching—

He should have known better.

_You are being deceived._

How long had it been since he’d first learned that lesson? And all it had taken to make him forget was a seduction?

The Prime thought Megatron could be led. Could be manipulated. Like a mechanimal offered a treat. One more for the collection of blindly loyal hangers-on.

_Pit, it hurt. Why did it hurt so much?_

The Prime thought he could use this—this entanglement as leverage. As a way to win the war. He prettied it up with the old Autobot nonsense phrases, but…

Optimus Prime thought that what had happened between them would mean peace without discussion.

Optimus Prime didn’t respect him. Optimus Prime didn’t think of him as—

For all the Prime’s lip service, he would never think Megatron belonged in the light.

Megatron couldn’t let this stand. The alliance still had to endure, for the moment, but his Decepticons on the bridge were watching, and they would know that their Lord had not failed them.

Their Lord had not betrayed their cause.

He hated when Starscream was right. All the more reason he had to speak now. Starscream was unlikely to keep his mouth shut, at least not to the extent Megatron would wish.

Megatron felt filthy. Sullied. And even worse for mourning the loss of the illusion, wishing somewhere in his spark that he could still look forward to going back to their hab together. To soft, shining, fierce pleasure…

It wouldn’t have been real anyway.

Megatron’s spark twisted again as he looked into the Prime’s face, but he kept his expression still.

_‘Til all are one._

“Do you know where I first saw that phrase, Prime?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A million thank yous to [entangledwood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eryn/pseuds/entangledwood) and [RHplus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RHplus/works) for whipping this chapter into shape.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you know where I first saw that phrase, Prime?”  
> ‘Prime’ came out sounding like a curse. But Optimus didn’t understand. What was wrong?  
>  _“‘Til all are one.”_

“‘Til all are one.”

As Optimus turned away from their mixed-faction bridge crew to face Megatron again, the future seemed full of hope.

Optimus felt wonderful. He felt known. Even the tension of leftover, unreleased charge felt good to him. And that didn’t matter, because soon they’d be back in their hab. Commanding beside his nemesis had always been bizarrely easy, but _now—_ they’d hardly even needed to speak to each other while they were leading the charge onto the Quintesson ship.

Almost until this moment, Optimus had not truly trusted their alliance. The peace between the factions had been a relief, but the threat of treachery or mutiny or simple collapse always loomed—and would he ever be able to relax? Would it be a hundred years after they finally defeated the Quintessons? A thousand? More? But this bright, mysterious connection that he felt with Megatron...he could trust that. Other obstacles remained, but with the two of them united, everything else was trivial.

He felt a foolish, shining feeling welling up inside him as he looked at Megatron. The strong lines of his face were so stern, but always so expressive. Optimus smiled behind his mask.

He was ready to go home. He even started to walk toward where Megatron stood at the exit.

But Megatron was holding himself very still, and there was a look on his face like—Optimus’s battle protocols twitched, but he suppressed them. The expression on Megatron’s face was changing. Slowly, from stiffness into a sneer…

Then Megatron was stalking forward to the center of the room, brushing past Optimus roughly. The crew murmured. Megatron looked at Optimus, his expression fierce.

And then he began to speak. As always, Megatron launched into speeches like he was launching himself into battle: without hesitation, and without mercy.

“Do you know where I first saw that phrase, Prime?”

‘Prime’ came out sounding like a curse. But Optimus didn’t understand. What was wrong?

_“‘Til all are one.”_

The tone in Megatron’s voice had Optimus tensing, preparing for a blow that he knew wouldn’t be physical. But Optimus had used that phrase in front of Megatron a thousand times. Why this reaction now?

“I saw it in a smelting pit. It was written above the door in ornate, shining letters. Like it was something beautiful.”

Optimus—Optimus didn’t understand. It _was_ something beautiful! ’’Til all are one’ _was_ a beautiful idea; he’d held that nebulous concept close to his spark for nearly his entire function, and even more so after he’d received the Matrix—

“An overseer took my cohort on a _tour_ shortly after we onlined. He gave us a pretty little speech about Primus and the ‘union of all’ in the Afterspark. I thought the smelter was beautiful, at first. I hadn’t ever seen anything so bright before, so glowing. Then I found out what it was for.”

Everyone on the bridge had stopped speaking. Even Magnus had looked away from his console. Optimus could only stare.

“Apparently, they’d delivered too many miner newbuilds, greedy for energon. They didn’t have room for all of us. The overseer said that he might as well choose at random, to set an example of what a smelter was for. And he looked at us, and he looked at us, and then he smiled because he was the sort of mech who enjoyed scaring newbuilds.”

The image that Optimus’s speculation module conjured up was vivid, and he shrank from it.

“Then the overseer laughed, and told us, oh, it had all been a joke. Just a little fear of Primus for you, it builds character.” Megatron laughed a bit himself, mocking. “‘Fear of Primus’—no, we all knew who we were supposed to fear, and it was not that myth.”

Optimus had almost forgotten Megatron was an atheist. Here Megatron paused, looking at their crew.

He continued, “One mech among us let out a great sigh, relieved to keep his life, and at once the overseer gleefully spun around and seized the mech by his collar faring and shoved him into the pit.”

Some part of Optimus’s processor registered that some of the Autobots present gasped at that. None of the Decepticons did.

“Miners ought not be _expressive_ , you understand,” Megatron said. He smiled. Optimus felt sick.

He had long thought that there was a bizarre duality to Megatron’s personality. Ever combative, every behavior exaggerated, Megatron never seemed to be _hiding_ his emotions, but he could be just as controlled as he could be emotive. It had seemed arbitrary, and it made Megatron an unknown quantity, perennially difficult to predict.

But now, Optimus could see it. The defiant, iron will behind every _expressive_ outburst.

Optimus was still frozen where he’d stopped on his way to the door. Both of them were still filthy. Megatron had a long streak of organic gore down one leg, and parts of his plating were blaster-fire-blackened.

“That— _that_ was when I learned what all your pretty words were hiding, Prime,” Megatron said, suddenly addressing him with a sharp gesture. Optimus felt his attention like a weight, but as suddenly as it came, it left. Megatron turned back to the assembled crowd.

“That was when I first learned not to trust _Autobots.”_ Megatron almost laughed the word, but Optimus didn’t understand how he could bear to find humor in anything he’d said. “Of course, they were not called ‘Autobots’ then. They were called overseers, and nobles, and followers of Primus, and ‘respectable mechanisms’, while _we_ were so much cold-constructed trash.”

Megatron had moved closer to the bridge viewport now, and the cold, blue-toned expanse of stars glimmered behind him. His processor overlaid the memory—the painfully recent memory—of Megatron bathed in the radiant colors of the nebula, red and magenta and purple dancing over his plating in their rooms... Optimus had stepped out of a beautiful dream into a bleak reality.

“That was the great lie, of course. That we were _less._ That we were _undeserving._ ” The room seemed to hold its breath. “I didn’t fully understand, not then. Not yet. I hadn’t even seen the sun yet, back then.”

No longer smiling, he said, “I will not rest until I know that Cybertron will never see another rotten ‘Golden Age.’ No more nobility, no more castes, no more Primes and priests, no more Decepticons, trapped in the dark. No more pretty words for ugly truths.”

It had been only a few minutes ago that Optimus had been holding this mech in his hands, all the immense power and precision of Megatron-the-weapon thrumming beneath his touch. And before that, so intimately… It felt devastating now, to think of what he’d felt then. Of what he’d been imagining for them.

His spark ached.

Megatron shifted his gaze to meet Optimus’ optics, and addressed him with menacing sincerity, “I will never allow you to return even one of my Decepticons to that existence, Prime. Not one of them, not ever. Even if it means losing Cybertron, our home, and every one of our lives.”

“I am not foolish enough to fight the Quintessons alone.” Here Megatron paused, looking down, though not as if waiting for a response—Optimus would have been unable to speak a single word at that moment—but thinking, or trying to regain control. Megatron’s mouth twisted.

He looked up again at the Prime from beneath a lowered brow. There was a fire in his optics. He growled, slowly, “But do not imagine that when they are defeated, I will _roll over_ and let _you_ lead us back down into the dark.”

Optimus heard how Megatron ground out the words “roll over.” His voice had just the smallest twinge of static… Optimus felt a sharp shuddering horror spread through him at the personal implication. _This_ was why Megatron was taking this position now. On top of the cascade of moral, strategic, and ideological revelations his processor was struggling to contend with after Megatron’s speech, the _implication_ —Optimus almost could not see, he was so stricken.

Megatron thought—Megatron thought Optimus had intended—and he _had_. Optimus _had_ thought they might get to peace this way, and was that so wrong, really—but Optimus had thought to _use it as a lever—_ to use their sexual relationship—but that was not the worst.

The worst was that this, this was what Megatron had thought of him _the whole time_.

Megatron turned to address the crowd that had gathered on the bridge, listening either enraptured or horrified, depending on faction. More than just the bridge crew were here now, and Optimus didn’t know when they’d come in. Optimus noticed Reflector among them, and knew that most of the crew, possibly most of the army, would see this speech from his recording before long.

Optimus had always hated Megatron’s speeches.

“I won’t pretend it isn’t a pretty dream,” Megatron continued. “A united Cybertron. An end to the innermost betrayal of making war on your own species.”

Optimus’s spark shuddered in it’s casing, and he could feel, from where he’d pushed that other presence in his mind and spark, the distant impression of the pseudo-pain the Matrix was sending him.

“But if the cost of that dream is returning to _‘til all are one_ —if the cost of that dream is submitting to _the Autobot cause_ —then it is only a nightmare in disguise.”

Megatron paused, stone-faced. He did not turn to face Optimus again, and Optimus felt the absence of his gaze like a physical thing. He wondered, hysterically, if he would ever feel the weight of that gaze again, or if this was truly a rejection so complete...

Then slowly, with a voice like a glacier splitting, each syllable falling with precision from his lips, Megatron said, “I will not submit.”

The room erupted in noise, as the Decepticons shouted their agreement, while the Autobots present stayed still, confused and silent, some angry. An almost pleased expression flickered on Megatron’s face, and he walked without ceremony out of the doors and off of the bridge.

Optimus was in agony.

The Decepticons followed after Megatron or returned to their duties, while the Autobots looked around, dazed. They looked at Optimus, their Prime, and Ultra Magnus went up to him and spoke, but Optimus could not respond. He only stared at the closed doors where Megatron had gone.

Optimus realized that what he thought he had held in his hands, what he thought was something true and wonderful and miraculous and shockingly intimate, something that was Megatron’s own self, had never been given to him at all.

Megatron must think that Optimus hadn’t meant any of it. That it had been a game, a gambit, that Megatron’s pleasure had been a tool in Optimus’s hands, one he’d intended to use. And Optimus _had_ —had thought that this would _change things._

Some part of it had been true. Some part of it had to have been true. Optimus grasped at that thought as he finally made his way to the door.

He had to _do something._

 

* * *

 

“That arrogant rust-bucket, who does he think he is, talking to you like that—” Ratchet said, as the office door shut behind them and Optimus sat down at his desk.

Ratchet had done the hard work of tracking Optimus down after he’d wandered off of the bridge in a daze. Apparently, Reflector had broadcast the speech live on a Decepticon channel. It had gotten passed around the ship’s Autobots soon after.

“I have been a fool,” was all Optimus said.

“Well, I probably could have told you a few good overloads wouldn’t be enough to make Megatron seriously consider peace.” Ratchet was leaning against the door of the office, as if on guard. Not that it would do much good. Soundwave probably had an audio pickup in here.

Optimus couldn’t bring himself to care. Let Soundwave listen in.

“No—yes. You’re right. You’re completely right.” Optimus sighed, and rested his head in his hands. Then, with shame, he added, “Though I didn’t make Megatron overload. There...weren’t _any_ overloads.”

“Ah…” Ratchet paused for a while, then he seemed to decide against a follow-up question. Switching gears, he said, “Diplomacy isn’t my area of expertise, but I don’t see the harm done overall. We’re back where we started with this alliance anyway. Magnus will probably ask some awkward questions—”

But Optimus was hardly listening, and said quietly, “He doesn’t know me at all.”

Then both of them were silent for a long moment.

“Optimus,” Ratchet said, and his voice sounded questioning, shocked. Confused, Optimus looked up. His friend was grimacing. “You didn’t tell me it was like _that._ I thought it was all tension and lust—” Optimus winced. “—but you care about whether or not he knows you—oh, Optimus.”

Optimus couldn’t meet Ratchet’s worried optics. “I don’t think that I knew it myself.”

Ratchet frowned. “I wish—well, I wish I’d given you different advice.”

“I didn’t get into this mess because you told me to, old friend,” Optimus sighed. “I had every intention of ignoring your suggestions. Then…well. Then.”

Ratchet left his place at the door and came closer.

Optimus continued, “Megatron is—he’s—he’s _important_. And I have been a fool.”

“I’m so sorry, Optimus. But...maybe this is for the best.” Ratchet was frowning a little and looking at him closely.

For a while they didn’t speak. Optimus just sat quietly and looked at the door to the office. Finally, he said, “Ratchet, could you get ahold of some mica chips for me?”

“Uh. Well, yes, probably. I might need to call in a few favors...but aren’t rust flakes your favorite additive?”

“Yes, that’s true. Could you do it by this evening?”

Ratchet ventured, “Optimus, I hope you aren’t trying to—”

Optimus narrowed his optics and interrupted sharply, “Can you do it or not?”

“Yes, I can, but, Optimus, _wooing_ —”

“This is a diplomatic issue, and I am handling it as I see fit,” Optimus said quietly.

Optimus gave some sort of an excuse and left Ratchet quickly after that, unwilling to keep looking at the medic’s troubled, pitying expression. Optimus thought briefly of cleaning up, still filthy as he was from the fighting, but he wasn’t remotely prepared to go back to their hab.

Before he saw Megatron alone again, he would need time to think.

 

* * *

 

Optimus chose his usual seat in the conference room.

For all he’d been paralyzed with wanting Megatron, the last time Optimus had been in this room, he hadn’t imagined that he would follow through on those desires. He certainly hadn’t imagined feeling like _this._

Maybe Ratchet was right. Maybe Megatron _was_ an arrogant rust-bucket not worth listening to. Part of Optimus wanted Ratchet to be right. Part of Optimus wanted to think that Megatron was just a deluded Decepticon, seeing conspiracies around corners and spouting propaganda. The alternative was significantly more uncomfortable...

But he couldn’t go easy on himself in this. He would face what Megatron had said without flinching.

He _had_ failed. He had failed to see, he had failed to listen; he had misunderstood so much. And now, at the end of millions of years of blindness, he may have made an irreversible mistake.

Optimus had known that the Decepticon motto, ‘ _you are being deceived,’_ meant: ‘ _you are being deceived by the Autobots.’_ He had even known that, to an extent, that claim had been _true._

He’d experienced some of that himself, in his old life. Nothing like what Megatron had described, but…Orion Pax had seen the excesses of the upper classes. Orion had seen how, as the centuries went on, life got harder and harder for people like him, and and even worse for those less lucky than himself.

The Cybertronian government before the war had been—well, it had been a mess. Corruption, graft, prejudice—Optimus knew just how much of a mess better than most. He’d been the one in charge of cleaning it up, once the old order had collapsed.

But even so, Optimus had always thought that ‘ _you are being deceived_ ’ had been an overreaction. The Decepticons had taken it too far. They’d kept going when they should have stopped, and they’d exaggerated the initial problem. Optimus had thought that they’d invented this outsized conspiracy as an excuse for a violent grab at power... That they were all misguided, driven by baser desires. A mob of the angry and uneducated who’d been taken in by Megatron’s misleading rhetoric.

He had forced himself, early in the war with the help of the Matrix, to stop _hating_ the Decepticons. But maybe…he hadn’t overcome it. Not completely.

Before the war, and unprovoked, Megatron had nearly killed him.

Megatron was the reason he had been rebuilt into Optimus Prime.

He’d never thought that Megatron might not _know_ that, after so long, but obviously he didn’t. Not if he thought Optimus was some noble.

His qualifications had included _manual labor_ and _being nice,_ as Ironhide had once bluntly put it.

The Prime’s team had guarded the secret of his original identity carefully in the beginning. But eventually, that secret hadn’t been important anymore. Optimus had been tested as a leader, by both sides. It seemed insane, that after so long, Megatron _didn’t know him—_

Optimus reached out a hand and touched the chair where Megatron would sit when he arrived at the end of the hour. His social protocols twitched and he tried to corral them down.

Megatron must have always thought that Optimus was this...caricature of a high-caste mech? And Optimus had managed to reaffirm that belief! Assuming that interfacing would be able to replace negotiations?

Alone in his own processor, Optimus wanted to defend himself. He wanted to be angry and proud, to tell himself that his actions, his pursuit of justice and honor and mercy, should have been evidence enough—but he knew he had to face this.

Megatron was _right._

So how could Optimus be angry?

He knew that Megatron’s criticism didn’t cut to the core of who the Autobots truly were. He hoped none of his Autobots wanted a return to what Megatron had described in his speech. But he could see how the Decepticons might think they did.

Since this alliance had begun, Optimus had been _shocked_ by the competence of the Decepticon rank and file. Autobot intelligence reports throughout the war should have told him that the Decepticons were an efficient, highly intelligent fighting force, but something, somewhere in his processor had held on tight to the idea that they were not.

Of course they were not. Because they were Decepticons.

They were base and violent and stupid and uncontrolled and Optimus was _shaking_ , he was so ashamed. The injustice of it—and the foolishness! How many times in this war had he underestimated his opponents and lost ground for it?

And how many times had he failed to reach them with diplomacy, because he didn’t know what to say?

But Megatron was wrong about one thing: Optimus was no noble. He wasn’t even a respectable mechanism.

The Matrix pulsed insistently at him.

The Matrix had always been a burden, a source of pain—Primus’s transmuted pain—but it had also been his refuge. His solid ground in a life he had been unprepared to lead.

Optimus settled in his chair, let his optics flicker off, and sent his own consciousness deep within, to the Matrix of Leadership.

 

* * *

 

Optimus came out of his meditation when Megatron entered the room.

He struggled not to tense.

But Megatron didn’t hesitate for an instant. He marched up to the head of the table and leaned over it and into his personal space. Optimus tilted his head up to meet Megatron’s optics.

“If you dare leave the alliance over this, I will make you regret it,” Megatron said, in a dangerously quiet growl.

So _Megatron_ wasn’t planning to break the treaty. That was one bridge crossed. Optimus almost relaxed. He said, “We won’t. Of course—of course we won’t.”

Megatron stood back up and looked down at him. Some of the tension left his face, but it only twisted up into a glare again afterwards. He said, “The Decepticons are not _yours_.” And there was an extra element of vitriol in Megatron’s voice now. “ _I_ am not _yours._ ”

Each word fell like a blow.

One more injury to the dream he hadn’t known he’d had. But Optimus had expected this. He’d understood the consequences of what he’d done.

Looking up into Megatron’s fierce expression, Optimus knew for certain. He’d known when he’d sunk his thoughts down into the Matrix, but something about the hooded red of his almost-lover’s optics made it real: he wanted Megatron, and he wanted the Decepticons.

One people. Forever.

And Optimus was willing to fight for what he wanted.

“I was wrong. I’m sorry,” he confessed.

Megatron’s optics flashed, and Optimus would have said more, but Ultra Magnus broke up their little tête-à-tête. So Megatron turned from him to take his seat. As he sat down, Megatron shifted his chair a bit more to the left. Optimus felt every additional inch of space like a hole in his spark.

Magnus wasn’t smiling as he came in, of course not, but he looked pleased in his own way. It took Optimus a moment to remember that they had just won a battle, and that Magnus had no way of understanding how badly Optimus had put their alliance at risk.

To an outsider, his argument with Megatron might even have seemed _less_ of a personal attack than usual.

Soundwave slipped quietly into the conference room next. He took his seat in typical silence, only passing over a datapad to Ultra Magnus, who thanked him. Optimus might have imagined it, but he felt hostility somewhere in that non-expression when Soundwave’s visor glanced over him.

What did Soundwave know?

Starscream strutted into the room next, and Wheeljack filed in behind him. Wheeljack was grumbling and looking singed, and his helm fins were flashing a disgruntled orange. Starscream was keeping up a loud, complexly scientific running commentary in Wheeljack’s direction, and under the cover of that noise, Ratchet and Jazz slipped in.

As everyone began to settle down, Megatron opened the meeting briskly with, “Ultra Magnus, what damage did the ship sustain during this battle?”

Just like everything was normal. Optimus didn’t know why he’d expected something else—like Megatron might have started the meeting talking about _them._ But there were no changes to the status quo. Just like their war. Their wretched, eternal war.

The Matrix sent a reassuring wave of calm through his spark, and Optimus absent-mindedly rubbed at his chest, between his windshields.

No. Their war would not be eternal. Optimus would be dead and gray before he would accept that. There was a way through this, and he would find it.

Ultra Magnus had barely finished two sentences of his report on the ship’s status before Starscream groaned and said, “Blah, blah, blah, you don’t have to read your whole report out loud!”

“I am not,” Ultra Magnus replied, frowning severely. “As a rule, I keep oral presentations 75% shorter than written reports.”

Starscream’s lips pulled back in disgust. “Right. How horrifying. Well, what Ultra Magnus is _trying_ to tell us is that the ship is wrecked! But, good news, which isn’t in your report because I just finished making it happen—”

Wheeljack coughed.

“—because Wheeljack and I just finished making it happen, the hyperdrive will now be able to get us out of this Primus-forsaken place.”

“And we won’t explode,” Wheeljack added.

Optimus sighed. It was nice to know _some_ things about his functioning never changed.

“Wonderful,” Megatron drawled. “I’m _thrilled_ to hear that.”

Wheeljack’s enthusiasm was undampened. “At least once the shields are back up, which’ll take us a little while. Venting atmosphere in the middle of hyperspace is a recipe for dramatic results! But once that’s done, I’d love to take us into the spacedock at Venture. They’re super neutral, so they should be friendly, and they’ve got this new equipment that would let me upgrade the—”

“Soundwave: strongly recommends returning to Cybertronian controlled space.” Soundwave held up a datapad depicting a star map.

“Wheeljack, Soundwave is right. I can’t agree to dock the ship in neutral territory without an escort,” Optimus said.

“Soundwave: proposes Athenia as next destination.”

“Yes, we were discussing that as an option. Unless the outside tactical situation has changed drastically, it’s the best choice,” Megatron said.

Optimus imagined he heard a slight something, a self-consciousness, as Megatron said ‘we.’

Soundwave said, “Communications: soon to be fully functional. Anticipate receiving news before entering hyperspace.”

“Good work, Soundwave,” Optimus said. It was still so strange to say that. Though Soundwave might have been glaring at him...but it was very hard to tell.

With a flash of nervous green fins, Wheeljack interjected, “Uh, Star and I were also wondering if we could get approval to accelerate work on developing the new weapon. I think it has a lot of potential for improvement, both for precision, range, and overall scale.”

Starscream grumbled next to him, something under his breath.

Optimus barely had to think about it. “Yes,” he said, and Megatron echoed him, nearly at the same time. Optimus looked at him, but Megatron didn’t return his gaze.

“You have our approval,” Optimus reiterated, before Megatron launched them into their next topic.

“Medic, what’s the injury report?”

Ratchet was definitely glaring as he stood up, and Optimus began to regret confiding in him. Though Ratchet’s range of expressions was mostly glares, so Megatron perhaps wouldn’t notice.

Thankfully, the report from medical wasn’t long. A few seekers were going to be stuck in the medbay for a while, and a handful of Autobots from the boarding party were in need of more serious repairs. Optimus was just grateful they’d taken no casualties. Ratchet was making the good news sound like a barrage of accusations, but that wasn’t completely abnormal.

After Ratchet finished, Megatron asked the rest of their officers for any comments or concerns on the results of the battle. Optimus still felt too numb to try to genuinely participate. Starscream said something flippant about his seekers, Ultra Magnus suggested offering a particular Autobot a commendation, Soundwave commented on how the transfer of the boarding party to the Quintesson ship was managed…

When they had boarded the Quintesson ship, Optimus had been holding Megatron in his gun mode. As Megatron had moved in and out of root mode throughout the engagement, Optimus had felt an added intimacy that he hadn’t noticed in similar encounters. Really, it was only a few hours ago that Megatron had been _in his hands._ The trust involved...

And only a few hours before that—

Optimus wanted to wrap up this meeting. The sooner he would be able to speak to Megatron properly, and in private, the better. He _needed_ to speak to Megatron in private.

As the post-battle discussion wound down, Jazz stood up. He leaned casually against the conference table and started to talk. “So my mechs, before we put this one in the can, there’s something we’ve gotta discuss. Unity.”

Starscream mimed gagging.

Jazz gestured at Optimus and Megatron and continued, “I don’t know what you two were on about on the bridge earlier, but I don’t like it. If something’s wrong with y’all, you’ve gotta read us in.”

Starscream grinned and said, “Oh, yes, do ‘read us in.’ What’s the trouble in paradise?”

Optimus had forgotten about _Starscream._ Him walking in on them had seemed unimportant in the face of everything else, and now it was a particularly hideous memory, since Optimus feared that there wouldn’t be another chance _—_

Jazz ignored him and kept going, “If it were super serious, I know I’d’ve already heard about it from Optimus. But I don’t care if it isn’t an alliance-ending squabble. If whatever’s up with you is getting dragged out into dramatic speeches on the bridge, then it’s gotta get dealt with.”

Optimus put a hand over his face and Megatron revved his engine pointedy.

At the other end of the table, Ratchet released a deep sigh.

Jazz said, “We got out of this trap through good old-fashioned teamwork—yes I’m looking at you, Jackie and Screamer—” Jazz pointed at them, where Starscream was still grinning maliciously. ”—and the only way we’re gonna be able to bring this thing home to roost is through more good old-fashioned teamwork.”

Megatron frowned and Optimus heard him say “Roost?” under his breath. And then, exasperated, “Autobots…”

But Jazz wasn’t done making Optimus feel even worse about the situation. “You can argue about the future all you want, and like, I get it, the Con thing, you know? You guys need aggressive pep talks every now and then. But we gotta have a united front from you two right now. And if something’s up? High command has gotta know.”

Starscream’s vents wheezed a bit, and he barked out a laugh, “Ha! Details, we need details! How many desks, exactly, have you—”

Megatron growled and threw a datapad with precision right into Starscream’s nose.

The seeker squawked, “Ow!”

But why wasn’t Starscream just coming out with it? He certainly hadn’t held back at the time. This was a perfect opportunity to humiliate them.

Starscream had mocked them as soon as he’d burst into the room. As if Megatron ought to be embarrassed for being receptive. Optimus felt part of his code react to the memory as well, urging him to _defend_ and _honor_ his—his—and his weapons systems started to online.

Megatron spoke before Optimus could do something particularly foolish, like reach over the table and throw Starscream against the wall. Or shoot him in his smirking face. Or rip off his—

“Nothing serious is wrong. Of course, we’ll keep you informed,” Megatron said. His red optics were as dark as banked coals. There was a viciousness in his expression… Optimus realized he hadn’t seen that edge of anger and disdain on Megatron’s face in a long time.

And there was a bleakness to his face as well. Optimus’s domestic protocols nudged him again. _Reassure, show affection,_ they said.

Like that was going to help.

The worst part was, this time, he really wanted to.

A long silence followed Megatron’s response. Jazz looked at Optimus closely.

“Unless there’s anything else, there is one more administrative matter I’d like to discuss before we adjourn. Does anyone object?” Ultra Magnus said.

Megatron waved him on.

Ultra Magnus cleared his vocalizer. “While we are here, I have encountered a discrepancy between the lists of restricted texts for our respective factions.”

Oh no.

“Material which is banned by Decepticon Command—”

Wasn’t his earlier humiliation enough?

Starscream whined, “Do we all really have to be here for this?”

Ultra Magnus didn’t miss a beat. He continued, “—is permitted under the Autobot Code. Specifically, I have encountered a case of an Autobot passing contraband written material to a Decepticon. Under the rules of the Autobot Code, the Autobot is not subject to punishment, because of the Autobot policy on censorship, which I must remind the Prime—”

Whatever he personally had to endure, and, oh, how he wanted this meeting to end, Optimus wasn’t going to give in on _this_ point. He said, “As I’ve explained before, Ultra Magnus, my policy on censorship remains firm. We will not police anything any Autobot chooses to read or write.”

Starscream made a disgusting sound and sneered, “Ridiculous. I can’t believe I’m agreeing with Magnus.”

Jazz said, “I’m with Prime. Censorship is a slippery slope: you find yourself on your aft before you know it.”

“Oh, stuff it in your exhaust port,” Starscream interrupted. “What even is the ‘material’ we’re talking about?”

Ultra Magnus huffed. “The details were in my written report which was made accessible to—”

“Ugh, you _know_ I don’t read that rust. Hurry up and tell me.”

Magnus consulted his datapad and Optimus had to make an effort not to slump in his chair. Then, “Ah, yes. The material in question is a novel entitled, _Aroused by the Savage Gladiator,_ by Seducturus.”

Starscream’s jaw dropped open.

“Oh yeah! I know those books,” Jazz said, sounding unfairly upbeat. “That series really fell apart after the first one.”

Optimus felt his spark flip in its casing. That series? _There was a series?_

“Oh, Unicron take me, this is just too good.” Starscream put his head facedown on the table. “After all this time, and we’re back to dealing with this. Ha!”

“While I’m glad you’re finding some humor in the situation, this is a legitimate interfactional issue, Starscream,” Ultra Magnus continued. “Soundwave has been adamant about the seriousness of the offense.”

“Oh scrap, you mean because—” whatever Jazz had been about to say was interrupted by a growl from Megatron.

But Starscream shot up to a sitting position before Megatron could speak. “Come on, I’ve got to be the one to explain it, it’s just too _good._ I mean, does Prime know yet, first of all? Oh, ha, is that _why,_ of course it is, did he _read_ it?”

Optimus decided not to answer the question, but Starscream didn’t wait for a response.

In an affected and even higher than normal tone, Starscream began, “ _Aroused by the Savage Gladiator_ is a most nefarious piece of fiction! After all, it is inspired by our glorious leader, Megatron himself!”

Something in Ultra Magnus’s vocalizer made a distressing grating noise. Ratchet stared.

Jazz said, “Tell us something we don’t know.”

Optimus wanted to sink down under the table and lay there until he offlined.

“Apart from being hilariously unrealistic—”

“Starscream—”

“Except for the dimensions, of course, which everyone knows are accurate—”

“Starscream!” Megatron growled again, but even he was resting his helm in one hand.

“Right, right, well, way back in the early days of our glorious revolution, particularly zealous Decepticons tried to imitate certain scenes in the book, because they were bonkers enough to think imitating Mighty Megatron—excuse me, _Maximum—_ was a good idea. Once, someone tried to do that thing with the trident. I saw the medical reports, it was a _bad_ idea.”

“Woah!” Jazz said. “Has anyone actually managed the bit with the net? And the hooks? From the sequel?”

“Eh,” Starscream shrugged. “I’m sure Soundwave has records somewhere. Though I always thought _Dominated by the Savage Gladiator—_ if that’s the one you mean—was the most unimaginative of the lot. But it was so obviously Megatron in the leading role that they became sort of a cult object. I mean, the character even quotes directly from _Towards Peace,_ which, by the way, is why I said you ought to copyright it, if you remember—”

Optimus tried to stop his finials from twitching but it felt like a losing battle.

He’d been fantasizing about his greatest enemy for millenia, but he’d simply _never noticed._ He’d analyzed _Towards Peace_ many times, and he’d never noticed the direct quotes?

“—so a solid third of the army was in and out of the medbay for bizarre interfacing ailments, and as a result—”

Who doesn’t notice something like that? It was humiliating.

Wheeljack whispered across the table to Jazz, “Do you have a copy of this thing?”

Ratchet waved at Starscream, “Can I get a list of the kind of medical issues we might need to expect?”

Starscream ignored him and continued.“And the prequels are actually somewhat better written. _Maximum Thrust_ for example, but the sequels really—”

“You just think that because _Thrust_ has that big seeker orgy—” Jazz interrupted.

“Enough!” Megatron yelled, and then sighed, deeply. “The Decepticons cannot compromise on this point. Those books cannot be allowed back into the ranks. Once was enough.”

“How many books are there, exactly?” Optimus asked, entirely without intonation.

Jazz responded, “Eight I think? There are four Maximum prequels, and the last sequel is _Sparkmate of the Savage Gladiator._ Things really went downhill there. All that ‘ _the universe glitters in the pools of light that are your optics’_ and stuff.”

“You’re forgetting Passionwheels got his own series.”

“Nah, really? But in the first book he’s supposed to be ‘untouched,’ so—”

Optimus thought he’d have been able to suffer through this conversation with more ease if he’d gotten to make Megatron overload screaming against the wall in the washracks like he’d _wanted to._

Not that it wasn’t Optimus’s own fault that the mech wasn’t going to let him try.

Or even, without interfacing, Optimus had wanted to...he’d wanted to be the one to help Megatron clean off the evidence of the fighting, just like he was the one always at his side in the midst of it. Gently, thoroughly, until they were both shining. Several of his newly activated protocols were still pushing him to _cherish,_ to _serve,_ to—

Optimus realized that Jazz was still talking. “Honestly I’d love to get together for a sort of exchange, you know? We don’t have the old libraries anymore. I bet the Cons have got some great books socked away. And I know a lot of us Bots have kept our favorites around. Optimus, just to start, you’ve got—”

Oh no.

“What a wonderful idea,” Optimus interrupted, just this side of too loud. Ultra Magnus pulled back in surprise. “This topic is fairly complicated. Send us a proposal and we’ll see about discussing it at the next meeting.”

Ultra Magnus squared his shoulders and said, “Prime, if you are concerned about finding a compromise between the differing policies on censorship between our two factions, then may I suggest—”

“Yes, Prime.” Megatron wasn’t even smiling. It was all malice on his face. “If that’s your only concern, then I don’t see why we can’t discuss it now.”

Optimus grimaced, and hoped it didn’t show above the mask. Megatron already had enough material to mock him with. The Prime’s extensive collection of romantic and erotic fiction was not something he needed to know about.

Megatron did smile now, full of teeth, and looked at Jazz. “You were saying, Autobot? Something about old favorites?”

“Uh.” Jazz frowned, trying to look at Optimus for a cue. “I know how Prime feels about censorship, so that’s out. And I was going to say that making a big deal to the Autobots about this book that they can’t show to Cons would just make everyone want to read it. Honestly, I think it’s better off staying a Decepticon discipline issue.”

Megatron smiled again. It was not a pleasant smile.

“But this cultural exchange? Boosting morale?”

Jazz said slowly, “Yeah, I think it would be a great idea. We could all contribute. So many of us have old favorites socked away, and I’m sure we don’t all have the same things. Optimus has always—”

To Optimus’s extraordinary relief, Soundwave held up a hand for silence.

“Soundwave: receiving a long-distance communication. Origin: Rodimus, in command of the corvette, _Superstar.”_

And then Rodimus’s voice was pouring out of Soundwave’s speakers.

“Hey guys! Rodimus here! We got your super creepy instructions in case you all kicked it, and we’re on our way! Hopefully you didn’t, obviously. Assuming you’re alive, sounds like the _Nemesis_ is totaled, so the _Superstar_ will be happy to help out with repairs or space or whatever. Should be in real-time comm range in a jiffy.”

That derailed the meeting completely.

Amidst the cacophony of voices, Megatron stood up from his seat and took charge. “We’ll reconvene at the next shift change. All of you who have missed recharge: get it. At our next meeting I expect recommendations from you all about how to utilize the resources of the new ship. Soundwave, you will communicate with that upstart if he calls before then. Keep me informed.”

Having effectively dismissed them all, Megatron stalked out of the room without another word.

Distantly, Optimus noticed Ratchet pulling Starscream aside with more than a little force as everyone exited the conference room.

But Optimus was busy processing a more distressing idea: once they arrived at Athenia, and possibly once the _Superstar_ was with them, he and Megatron wouldn’t need to share a room together anymore.

He was running out of time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Entangledwood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eryn/pseuds/entangledwood) and [RHplus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RHplus/works) were very patient betas as I took my time with revisions! I wrote most of Megatron's speech last August, but getting everything else in this chapter right took me a little while.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s a peace offering. Or an apology,” the Prime said softly. He was still playing at shyness.

Megatron had gotten stuck in their foyer. Waiting. Feeling.

It was still _their_ foyer, too, wasn’t it. Would the Prime dare to come back here?

Megatron looked down at the desk. He ran his fingers over the surface, over the new scrapes in it, from what they’d done. And three parallel smears that...must have been where the Prime had put his hand down when it was still covered with lubricant.

He almost moved to wipe them away, but stopped. _Let Optimus see them,_ he thought. _Let him feel this way too, if he has it in him._ Megatron felt another wave of bitter disappointment cascade over him. There was the perverse and poignant longing for denied pleasure, the betrayal, the shame, the sense that everything had gone just _exactly_ wrong.

All for the loss of something that had never existed.

At least he hadn’t actually overloaded in front of him.

Megatron forcibly turned his attention from the desk to the dispenser on the other side of the room. It was about the time when they used to take energon together. In hindsight, it seemed ridiculous that he’d developed such a habit. They could have easily fueled at different times. But that first night, the Prime had simply prepared two cubes instead of one, and Megatron had accepted it. It had been easy.

He ruthlessly suppressed the wish that they could just go back to that.

Megatron wondered if the Prime was still laughing at him, inside. After all, what in the Pit was ‘ _I was wrong’_ supposed to accomplish? Did the Prime think that an apology would just make everything better?

Optimus Prime the diplomat had returned, it seemed, leaving Optimus Prime the ‘seducer’ in the background again.

Megatron cursed under his breath. How had he allowed this to happen?

He looked down at his frame. All the mess of the battle was still there, and—he couldn’t stop himself from looking—the pale residue of more personal fluids high up on the inside of his thighs. Fuel could wait.

He went into the washracks.

* * *

After the mess was gone, he still stood under the spray for a long time, trying to feel clean.

He had washed very carefully and very gently behind his panel, resisting any signs of arousal or any memories from the past day before closing up again.

The Prime’s own bizarre washrack supplies kept catching his optics, which didn’t help with forgetting everything that had happened. He’d colonized his own shelf at some point. All bright colored things, and some tools Megatron couldn’t guess the purpose of. There was a big yellow rectangle that squished when Megatron poked at it, and various bottles and jars. Judging by the strange text on some of them, probably picked up on _Earth._

Megatron wanted to smash them.

Just as he was analyzing whether ‘ _Yes, Prime, your special bottle of wax fell off the shelf and then I stepped on it, totally by accident, before jumping on it repeatedly, also totally by accident_ ’ would be enough to endanger their truce, he received a ping from Soundwave.

“Optimus Prime: Returned to habsuite. Dispensing energon. Threat level: one.”

Oh, Soundwave. Good, loyal, sarcastic Soundwave.

Megatron worked to calm his spark. He’d half hoped the Prime wouldn’t dare come back here, but he couldn’t shy away from facing him.

But even with the rush of anxiety, Soundwave’s thoughtfulness was a welcome reminder: he wasn’t alone in this. He was the leader of the Decepticons, and their strength was his strength. He would not falter.

He did suspect Soundwave would bring himself to ask direct questions about this situation soon, if he didn’t already know some of it. As much as Megatron wished he could pretend all of this had never happened, his third would need to be brought into the secret sooner or later. For one, Starscream’s continued ‘discretion’ was not to be relied upon.

Megatron was still surprised his second-in-command hadn’t come out with it directly at the staff meeting. He’d clearly wanted to...

The little traitor was probably waiting for the perfect moment to reveal the news: whenever would be most damaging to Megatron’s position.

Megatron spent a few moments in the air dryer, but he’d never liked that sensation. It made his seams tingle unpleasantly. He turned it off before the cycle had finished and decided to let the remaining drips of solvent on his plating dry on their own.

Then, unhesitating, he marched himself into the habsuite proper.

The Prime was seated behind the desk, apparently not working. His battle mask was down, and a half-empty energon cube was in front of him. Blue optics flicked up Megatron’s frame to his face, then flickered away again. That face looked tight somehow, like he was holding an expression inside.

There was a second cube on the desk. Optimus pushed it towards him.

“Here,” the Prime said, quiet.

Megatron didn’t move to take it.

“It’s not—it’s safe. I, fuel with me, please.” The Prime sighed, “But I understand if you—I could try it for you first—”

Megatron rolled his optics and snatched up the cube. “Don’t be insipid.”

Optimus flinched and said, “There is—I did add something, but it’s just for taste.”

Extravagant _Autobot_.

Megatron hadn’t fueled since the battle, so he needed it. And it wouldn’t do to let the Prime think Megatron truly feared for his safety on his own warship. There might be some scheme in this...but Soundwave would have noticed anything untoward. He’d been monitoring them again.

That was a comfort.

He took a sip of the energon cube. A glittering flavor washed over his sensors—bright spots of piquancy spreading over his tongue. It was a little gauche, he now knew: a strong, exciting mineral additive popular with the lower castes.

 _Mica._ He hadn’t had any in a long time; it hadn’t been a priority. Megatron felt a twisting in his spark as he realized.

“What is this?” he said, glaring.

“Mica chips,” the Prime said, not meeting his gaze.

“Yes, _obviously,_ but why—”

“They’re your favorite.” Interfering, presumptuous _Autobot_.

“Stop telling me things I already know, Prime.”

The Prime was holding his hands together on top of the desk. His expression...Megatron didn’t know what his expression meant.

“It’s a peace offering. Or an apology,” the Prime said softly. He was still playing at shyness.

Megatron scoffed. He didn’t put the cube down, but he didn’t take another sip either. Twin desires to gulp the whole thing in one go _and_ to throw it down the nearest garbage disposal left him torn.

_Mica._

“What you said about _‘til all are one_? I want—well, I want to debate you on that, about what it means—”

Oh, did he really?

At Megatron’s snarl Optimus looked up, finally, and rushed to say, “No, I—I don’t think you’re _wrong_. I _know_ that the old regime would use that concept for something ugly.” His mouth twitched into a sad smile, and his voice got quiet, almost like he was talking to himself. “I remember when we hacked into the restricted files in Iacon Central. They had this special ability to find new synonyms for ‘murder’ that sounded legal.”

Megatron couldn’t make out the Prime’s strategy in this. Could he imagine that Megatron might be taken in _again?_ He considered just taking his energon and walking out the door, but there was no reason not to let the Prime dig himself an even deeper hole. It still _hurt_ , but that was good: he needed to be hurt. He needed to shatter the illusion as much as he could.

More loudly, looking like he’d resolved some thought, the Prime continued, “I _would_ like to talk more about that maxim with you some other time, both because I think it’s true in a literal sense, and, well, because I want to hear your opinion. And about everything else as well—the war, the Decepticons, Cybertron.” Rushing on before Megatron could tell him how idiotic he sounded, he said, “But I know that the _point_ of what you were saying wasn’t about—it wasn’t _about_ ‘‘til all are one.’”

And he looked up at that, with appalling earnestness in his optics. Like that would get him anywhere.

Megatron’s expression must have been chastisement enough, because the Prime’s mouth twisted. He took a deep vent and brought himself to say, “I won’t do you the disservice of ignoring the message you so effectively delivered. I know that I was wrong. This isn’t—” and then, closing his optics, “—this _wasn’t_ a game to me. I didn’t—” Optimus visibly gritted his teeth. “No, I won’t hide this. I _did_ think that what happened between us would change the political landscape. I can see now that that was both irrational and _insulting_ and I am so sorry. I never meant—”

Megatron was tired of this already. “Prime, what do you expect to gain out of dragging us both through this conversation?”

The Prime stared at him. “I don’t know,” he said almost subvocally. And then, louder, “Please, _please_ listen to me. I don’t expect an apology to just make things alright,” and he gestured vaguely to the energon in Megatron’s hand. “But there are things you deserve to know. I don’t even expect you to believe me. I hoped—well.” The Prime grimaced.

 _Things he deserved to know_ , what in the Pit did that mean?

Optimus paused, looking down. He stroked his fingers—those fingers Megatron might never be able to forget—over the desk surface, and it took Megatron a moment to realize that he was tracing the path of the smears of lubricant they’d left behind.

Megatron did _not_ flinch.

“You implied that—that I orchestrated the intimacy between us for a political purpose—and _that’s_ not true.” Megatron watched the Prime’s fingers tremble on top of the desk.

He was viscerally reminded of those first tense conversations between them as the Quintesson threat became real and their alliance a necessity. Optimus had been wary and stiff back then, but there had been this same tone in his voice, this same look on his face, as he had worked to convince Megatron of their mutual danger.

This same desperation.

Megatron had never considered his nemesis a very good actor, but he thought he was going to need to revise that assessment. He crossed his arms and let his face go very still. What more was there to say? He’d already said everything.

The Prime drew his hand back and tried to meet Megatron’s optics.

Unfortunately, he had not suddenly become a coward, and he didn’t shrink away from Megatron’s responding glare. There was still that awful earnestness in his face. “Everything I said, I meant. Everything I did, I meant.” Then, horribly soft and solemn, “I was—I am— _honored_ , to have been allowed—to have shared—” He broke off.

And the Prime was still going on. “I know that what I _did_ was deeply disrespectful, and I don’t know if there’s any way I can say it that you would believe, but I _do_ respect you.”

Megatron ground his jaw and did not speak.

The Prime huffed a little laugh. “You’ve made it very clear how little you trust me now, and I won’t pretend you aren’t justified. I know I’ve been a fool. But you spoke about me in the same breath as the nobles and the priests, and all those mecha who engineered the Golden Age for their own ends. And that’s not who I am.”

Megatron felt suddenly very tired. He took another sip from his cube, for something to do, and was surprised all over again by the taste. “You’re _the Prime_ ,” he said. Idiot.

Then Optimus reached for that portable hologram projector that had appeared on the desk a few days ago. He flicked it on and paused, looking at it for a few moments, and then turned the stand around so Megatron could see.

“Look at this.”

Megatron was prepared for some dramatic, possibly horrible, revelation. He even had a cynical, dismissive response prepared. After all, what could Optimus Prime possibly do to shock him—but there was nothing. It was only a still holo. There were two mechs, with a femme between them. All smiling, embracing each other. Pretty standard Autobots, clearly pre-war.

He didn’t recognize any of them.

“What is this?” he asked.

Optimus Prime pointed to the mech on the left in the photo. “That’s me.”

Megatron had to reset his optics. “What?”

“That’s me, before I became Prime. I was called Orion Pax.” Optimus was looking down at the image himself, his eyes shadowed. Now that Megatron was staring at them both, and Optimus with his battlemask down, there was _maybe_ a slight familiarity in the faceplate? The optics? Just barely.

Optimus stroked the face of one of the other individuals in the holo.

“Before I took the Matrix, I was a dockworker in Iacon.”

Megatron couldn’t stop himself from jerking back. The energon sloshed in his cube, so he set it down.

“I had a truck altmode then, too, and my job was to unload shipments of energon from upriver and to arrange them for storage. I was onlined for that work. Before, well, before ‘Optimus,’ I never did anything else. And I was lucky. I had a cohort of close friends.” The Prime gestured at the holo. “We didn’t have very much, but it was a stable life. I was happy, actually.”

The Prime paused again, just looking at the holo. He didn’t smile.

Megatron hissed, “I don’t believe you.”

After all, how the Prime expected that Megatron would swallow such a ridiculous story—

The Prime’s face went hard and fierce and determined, and he opened his mouth and started to push himself up from the chair—and Megatron was _ready_ for a fight, a real one, with yelling, he _wanted_ that instead of all these fake emotions—but his nemesis stopped halfway to his feet and his optics went distant. The Prime bit his lip, looking down at the desk now, and said in a tight, controlled tone, “How did a simple dockworker ‘ascend’ to the Primacy, you mean?”

Megatron straightened up and glared down at him. “It’s nonsense, and you know it. I’ve had enough of your games.”

“It’s not—” he started, voice raised, but then he seemed to sag, again, giving up. He settled down into his chair and sighed. “I was…” the Prime looked away, towards the deep whirls of color out their window. Megatron heard the sound of a vocalizer resetting. “I was...nearly destroyed in the initial Decepticon incursion into Iacon. I was taken by a group of friends,” the Prime almost smiled, but the expression died, “and brought to Alpha Trion to see if I could be repaired. Instead of repairing me, he put me in an entirely new frame.”

Then he took a deep breath and said in a voice like a funeral chant, “A frame that could carry the Matrix of Leadership.”

Megatron crossed his arms. Did the Prime think he was an idiot? “This is the most absurd story I have ever heard.”

Optimus’s face twitched but he didn’t rise to the bait. “Megatron, _please_. It’s not even a proper secret now! Not since the first hundred thousand years into the war. Soundwave probably knows at this point. Or you can ask any Autobot, I expect.” Optimus breathed out a laugh and gestured at the holo again. “Primus, you could ask Elita One if you dared. That’s her before her reformat.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, yes,” Optimus said, looking at the group of smiling faces in the holo, not even paying attention to Megatron’s anger. “We were reformatted at the same time. Though for her it was a choice.”

Megatron couldn’t help looking at the picture again himself. The resemblance was slight, but the absurdity of the whole concept was mesmerizing.

“Ironhide used to say my qualifications for the Primacy were ‘a history in manual labor and being nice _.’_ ” The Prime emerged from his reverie and turned serious again. “But the person you seem to think I am—the, the spoiled noble who thinks that the government, the senate, _the old system_ is what we should go back to—that is the _opposite_ of who I am.“

For a moment, Megatron felt a pang of intense regret at this missed chance—if the story was even true. A naive young Prime, pulled out of Iacon’s working class, no support, no experience—it might have been so easy to _recruit_ him, if only Megatron had known. It would have changed _everything_. But he shoved the regret aside. They hadn’t known, they’d had no reason to suspect, and now—and now...

No. No, no. Now didn’t matter. It didn’t matter _who_ the Prime had been—it didn’t make _any_ difference. _Nothing_ had changed. Idiot, idiot Prime. Megatron ground out, “Do you really not know what the Autobots stand for?”

Optimus put one hand over his face and slowly stood up, moving away from the desk. Megatron saw one of his hands tighten into a fist. He breathed out, “How have four million years of actions not been enough to show you that I am not like them?”

Megatron slammed a hand on the desk. “I _have_ judged you by your actions, _Prime._ Do you not remember what you _just did?”_ The presumption, the line he’d crossed! Just hours ago! And after millions of years of conflict—like Megatron was going to fall for propaganda.

But Optimus didn’t yell back, and preempted Megatron’s accusations without even looking, waving a hand in his direction. “Yes, I know—I know I have been _foolish._ And I know I have been thoughtless, and I know that you have every right—”

And then, after a deep vent, lips curling, he said, suddenly soft, “I know that I have ruined this.” His helm bowed, finials at a low angle, looking down at the desk.

Megatron looked at the desk again, too, and saw the dents his fingers had clawed into it in his need.

No, he wouldn’t think of that.

“Fine. How _did_ an innocent dockworker manage to take control of the government?” Megatron asked, hoping the uncomfortable atmosphere of the Prime’s emotions would dissipate.

The Prime straightened and said slowly, as if thinking, “Alpha Trion helped, but the bureaucracy had collapsed completely by then, so there wasn’t really a government at all. Most of the nobility fled. The Matrix was proof enough for Ultra Magnus, and he brought some of the military with him. There were some more religious bots who rallied around once we put out the call, but most of it was slow recruitment. We put a lot of work into keeping you all from finding out how understaffed and disorganized we were—and how inexperienced _I_ was.”

Wonderful. More regrets. Who knew Optimus Prime would once have been so easy to kill.

Optimus looked lost in thought, but before Megatron could say anything else he murmured, “I spent most of my time on recruitment at first. Talking to those too poor or too stubborn to get out of Iacon, convincing them to come on board. Jazz I knew from my previous life, and he helped extremely. I held up the ceiling of the triage ward in Iacon General during a bombing, and that’s why Ratchet became CMO.”

He paused again, but Megatron was hardly going to stop him from revealing more details about the formation of Autobot high command.

“Prowl came later, as you probably know. And, well, word spread. Some of my most loyal Autobots were critical of me in the beginning.” He laughed to himself a little. “As far as taking control of the government, that sounds like a bad joke. We had the codes and keys to Cybertron’s energon caches, but it took months to figure out how much was in them, never mind where they were hidden. So many of the files were encrypted, or complete fabrications, or both. And it was like that for everything.”

What wonderful news, to learn that the Decepticons had _won the war_ without realizing it.

“Prime, what do you expect to gain from this? I know you’ve only been _sharing_ so much to get something out of me.”

“Yes,” Optimus said.

Trust the Prime to give the one response Megatron wasn’t expecting. “What?”

Optimus took a deep vent and turned fully to meet his optics again. He leaned, half-sitting on top of the desk. “Yes, I have a reason for sharing so much: I want peace. And I’m hoping that being as scrupulously honest as I can will convince you that I mean it.”

Megatron huffed. Ridiculous, lunatic Autobot. “Why _this?_ Why tell me your life story?”

“I want you to know that I’m not like them. Like Sentinel, and the rest.”

“Yes, you _are,”_ Megatron growled. “I’m not sure how you missed it, but you are the _Prime.”_

And Optimus looked back at him with his big optics, like he somehow didn’t understand, and maybe he didn’t, the delusional Autobot, and said, “Sentinel was corrupt. He didn’t care about his people—he wasn’t chosen by the Matrix—”

Megatron laughed. “Oh, he wasn’t _legitimate,_ so that’s alright then. Now are you going to tell me that the Primes before Sentinel weren’t chosen by the Matrix? Or did they just design the caste system by mistake?”

“No, but—”

Megatron was tired of listening. “You say you don’t want to go back to the ‘old system,’ yes?”

The Prime nodded, quiet.

“But you support the Primacy?”

He gave Megatron a look and said, “Yes, obviously.”

With a patronizing smile, hardly believing he had to spell this out, Megatron said, “The Primacy _is_ the old system. _You_ are the system.”

The look on his idiotic face was almost comic in its confusion.

“There were Primes before the caste system—”

This was becoming tedious.

Megatron interrupted, “But that doesn’t _matter_. The caste system was not the problem, it was only the symptom of the problem. Every Decepticon knows that leadership by mysteriously determined ‘divine right’ is just an excuse for the powerful to hold on to power. The caste system was a tool to further solidify that power.”

The Prime reset his optics and said, completely missing the point, “The Matrix really is not that mysterious.”

Megatron snarled his anger. “What, your magic bauble that lets you talk to your supernatural mentor Primus? That’s not mysterious?”

He sighed in the most infuriating way. “I can show you some of the tests Ratchet has run on the Matrix, if you want,” he said. “But Megatron, Primus is _real_.”

“Primus is a _myth_ made up to keep the masses in line and—” Megatron stopped himself from saying ‘to scare newbuilds.’ He’d had enough of talking about his youth for one day. “—and even if he _were_ real, divine right is still nonsense! So congratulations, you’re a glorified priest!”

There. Now maybe they could finally end this farce.

The Prime tilted his head, looking quizzical. Speaking slowly, hesitating, he said, “Are you saying… That is, if I agree to a joint government that doesn’t involve the Primacy, would you be willing to try for peace?”

Megatron went very, very still.

This was _not_ possible.

Megatron’s processor was telling him that very, very loudly. Absolutely everything he knew about the Autobots, about the Primes, about the very few viable negotiation options that had been available in the past four million years, they all categorically denied the words that had just come out of Optimus Prime’s mouth. He double checked his memory banks to be sure.

Not. Possible.

Megatron’s imagination interposed the image of the small Iaconian dockworker from the holo over the Prime’s serious expression. If this Prime wasn’t a noble, wasn’t a religious zealot, was instead someone who’d been created to move the energon of the rich from ship to shore… Megatron had met dockworkers from Iacon before—once—and though they’d had to lose their lives in the bargain, similar classes of mecha had become Decepticons. Was that the person he’d been sharing space with these past weeks? The person who had shared energon with him, had argued with him and laughed with him, the person who had—

It all still didn’t quite make _sense_ , but he couldn’t tease out where his processor was running into a contradiction. And even then, the Prime couldn’t really _mean_ what Megatron thought he meant.

“But you _wouldn’t_ agree to abolish the Primacy.”

Optimus looked up at him with intense focus. “Yes, I would.”

Immediately, Megatron’s processor slammed all personal concerns into the background, and with fierce focus he became Megatron the warlord, leader of an empire, once again.

_Optimus Prime would agree to peace terms that abolished the Primacy._

Megatron didn’t even know if he would accept those terms, because he hadn’t ever _thought_ about it—such an opportunity had never been within the realm of the possible. Killing the Prime, defeating the Autobots, that had been his goal because it was the only way to truly stamp out rule by divine right, but _this_ —this changed everything _._ A storm of scenarios and calculations and risks overwhelmed his mind.

Could this conversation be a trick? He still didn’t _believe_ this fairy story about some unknown bot suddenly waking up as supreme leader of all Cybertron. If they did enter a negotiation for peace, could the Decepticons lose face? Could negotiating this now, with the potential for _failure_ , pose a threat to the alliance they still desperately needed? Could the Autobots possibly bend enough to build a form of government that lived up to the ideals of the revolution—but the Primacy had always been the sticking point, the hardest battle. There might be others, but knowing that was accepted...

The Autobots would want concessions in return, but _what_ and would it be worth it? Could he build a peace that would give them Cybertron, give his Decepticons security and strength and freedom, and keep the poison of Golden Age ideology at bay forever? Assuming the Quintessons were eradicated—and that was not a small assumption.

A hideous thought rose up—that this had been an option _always_ and he’d been fool enough not to see it—but he shoved that thought aside as useless to contemplate. The past could not be changed.

But did Optimus mean it?

Megatron realized that he’d been staring for much too long. The Prime’s expression was changing, and his venting had increased in speed. Megatron watched his lips press tight together and then part on a soft noise.

“We—” Optimus started to say, watching Megatron just as closely, “—we could build it together, you and I.”

Did he really mean it?

Was it real—or was this another manipulation? Some scheme, some Autobot pretense?

A vision of the two of them standing side by side flashed through Megatron’s processor like lightning. Not the sort of victory he’d ever expected—but even so, it was still too much to be real. Like a dream that disappeared when he looked too closely. It would be—it would be just like it was now. Ruling together. As equals...

There was a light shining down on Optimus from the ceiling, and his helm, the finials slightly tilted back, was haloed against the jeweled colors and streaks of stars visible through their window. His optics, as always, were that very particular blue that reminded Megatron of the moment he had seen the sky over Cybertron for the first time.

A group of them had been transferred to a different mine, and they’d had to go over land. It had taken his optics a long time to adjust—everything was so _bright_ on the surface—but once they had… He’d been looking at a shining, seemingly-unending stretch of color. Everywhere he’d looked there were colors he’d never seen before. But most of all there was all that _blue_. And it was a deep, persistent blue, so extraordinarily bright, and yet opaque. Not like the deep navy of certain minerals, not at all like the translucent glow of the more unusual energon crystals. He’d been taught that the surface didn’t have a roof, but it had taken his processor some time to realize that what he was looking at was not an extravagantly painted ceiling, but the sky itself.

Megatron still couldn’t bring himself to look away.

Moving cautiously, Optimus stood up and came around the desk to him. Then they were nearly chest to chest, and standing just where—just where they’d been standing that morning, when—and Optimus was frowning a little, and his mouth was…

His mouth was...

Suddenly, Megatron saw a flash of bright, unexpected color at the edge of his field of vision, and he jerked back, trying to control his vents.

He looked out their viewport, half expecting to see another fleet of Quintesson ships just as before—but no. A single garishly-painted little cruiser was passing beside the _Nemesis_. That orange looked even worse than Megatron remembered, especially against the deep magenta backdrop of the nebula. As he watched, carefully not turning back to Optimus, the ship did an insolent barrel roll.

“I think we’re needed on the bridge,” he said, keeping his voice steady.

“Oh,” Optimus said, and his face fell.

“No, I—ugh, just look,” Megatron growled, gesturing at the window. “Your protegé is early.”

Optimus turned and said, “Oh,” again, but in a completely different tone of voice. Foolish Autobot. It wasn’t like Megatron had _agreed_ to anything. Before the Prime could say anything else—or worse, _do_ anything else—Megatron waved him towards the door.

“I have something to take care of, so I’ll meet you on the bridge.”

The Prime hesitated, wide-opticked and looking like he might be about to try a tentative smile.

Giving in, grudgingly, Megatron said, “We can talk about this later.”

As Optimus Prime palmed their door open and stepped out, Megatron turned his back and picked up his cube again. He took a slow, indulgent sip, letting the familiar flavor fill his mouth, before downing the rest in one greedy swallow.

* * *

“Soundwave, pull up Optimus Prime’s file and route it to this station.”

Megatron had detoured to his third-in-command’s office. He had evicted the cassettes and other members of staff from what served as the communications hub as soon as he entered, and took a seat at one of the workstations.

“Lord Megatron: very familiar with that file,” was the monotone response, but Megatron could see Soundwave inputting commands anyway.

“Then see if you can find out anything— _anything_ —about someone named Orion Pax.”

“Lord Megatron: not able to avoid Rodimus forever.”

He did not dignify that comment with a response. Anyway, every moment of the flood of verbal nonsense from the Prime’s little protegé that Megatron missed would preserve valuable free space in his memory banks.

The expected contents of the Prime’s file appeared quickly, pushed to the screen Megatron was using. He began scanning for any detail, any hint. He’d thoroughly examined the little information they’d been able to add after pooling resources with the Autobots, and of course their previous records were well known to him. Still, there might be something that he hadn’t thought important before.

They’d known he was Iaconian, of course, from his dialect. But it hadn’t seemed strange, before, how that was the only information about his origins that was available. Megatron just hadn’t considered...actually, none of them had considered. Soundwave would definitely have said _something_. But with Sentinel, while there was the political nonsense of how ‘the Prime belongs to all of Cybertron,’ he’d spoken often of the noble house he’d crawled out of. Megatron hadn’t cared enough to bother remembering its name, but he remembered reading political articles suggesting that his house had gained too much power in the wake of his ascension. And Zeta as well, his origins had never been a private thing. But there was _nothing_ here.

When Optimus had very suddenly appeared on the scene—literally, appeared on the scene, since the first the Decepticons had heard of him was on the field of battle—the nobility had already begun fleeing. So it was _possible_ that Optimus Prime simply hadn’t bothered announcing he’d come from a house that had already abandoned Cybertron. No political gain there.

And their early intelligence efforts on him had focused on his physical capabilities and frame specs, not his origins.

Though they still hadn’t been allowed access to Autobot High Command’s medical files…

His quick reading was turning up yet more nothing, when Soundwave stiffened noticeably next to him.

Soon a new file appeared on his screen.

It wasn’t the organized format they usually used—Soundwave had cobbled together different sources in his haste.

First was a truncated medical file, under the name Orion Pax. It was sparse, nothing special, and filed as a record of...a civilian casualty.

Alpha Trion was the physician of record. Two individuals named Dion and Ariel were listed as emergency contacts. Megatron skipped the medical details to see the date—during the invasion of Iacon.

Then there was an old work record, with a corrupted image file that resembled the holo Optimus had shown him.

_Assistant Manager, Energon Storage Specialist Port of Iacon, Dockyard 17_

Truck altmode, hired in the stellar year—Megatron skipped forward. There was a short article from before the news media had more or less collapsed. Among a list of similar news, it noted that several workers from Iacon Dockyard 17 were missing, presumed dead.

Dockyard 17...sounded familiar to him. There were photos of it, in the article. It looked like any other Iacon dock. There was a large warehouse space.

Soundwave had turned his visor to watch him as he read, and when Megatron turned to ask a question, Soundwave pressed a series of keys on his console and certain sections of the medical file were highlighted.

The spark type, the date of death in the medical file, and the cause: a spark chamber compromised by the blast of an energy weapon.

Soundwave sent him another article. It’s headline read: “Dockyard 17 Raided: Decepticons Begin Latest Vicious Assault with Seizure of Energon.”

Then another, dated a day later from a different source: “New Prime Battles Invading Decepticons.”

He barely remembered the raid, it was so deep in his archives, but the first time Optimus Prime had run at him across the battlefield was a vivid mark on his mind.

Soundwave brought the medical file forward again. He highlighted an energy measurement, and said aloud, “Orion Pax: killed by a fusion cannon blast.”

Oh.

Unconsciously, Megatron brushed his hand over the body of the cannon on his arm. He couldn’t look away from the screen.

Optimus Prime’s file appeared again, and Soundwave highlighted the spark type listed there.

The Autobots hadn’t given them that tidbit. Megatron had added the information to the file himself, after he’d personally torn the Prime’s chestplate open in battle. He’d barely been able to see, his face split open by the blade of the Prime’s energon axe. They’d been covered in spilled fluids and white flashes of misfiring charge, but he’d gotten enough of a glimpse to tell before the Prime’s backup arrived. So long ago, now.

Soundwave drew his attention back to the civilian medical file, the matching spark type—not that that _proved_ anything—and the spark signature that wasn’t listed there.

Megatron said, working to maintain composure in his voice, “We don’t know the Prime’s spark signature, so we couldn’t compare it anyway—”

And Soundwave showed him another civilian file. It was for someone named Dion—that emergency contact—deceased the same day, cause of death also affirmed by Alpha Trion—with his spark signature listed prominently.

Soundwave said, “Spark signature: deliberately removed from record of civilian Orion Pax.”

Alpha Trion’s own Decepticon intelligence file appeared, and Soundwave drew his attention to one line: ‘Alpha Trion is known to have been permitted by Sentinel Prime to study the Matrix.’

The picture was becoming horribly clear. What Optimus had told him was _true_ , and that was...that was something. But the rest? This secret that Optimus Prime had apparently never intended to mention?

Not unkindly, Soundwave told Megatron what he already knew. “Orion Pax: is Optimus Prime.”

Megatron put both hands on top of the console surface, said, “Thank you, Soundwave,” and stood up and walked out.

* * *

All of this hung together very neatly now.

Why had a dockworker from Iacon viciously fought the Decepticons from the first moment he found himself in a powerful new frame? Why had a former-laborer-turned-Prime never tried for a diplomatic solution during the beginning of the war, apparently the Autobots’ darkest hour? Why had Alpha Trion decided to present a simple dockworker with the Matrix?

When Optimus had been trying to convince him, Alpha Trion’s decision had been the strangest part to Megatron. It made perfect sense now, though Megatron doubted Optimus knew the explanation himself. Probably he’d been fed some pretty Autobot truth about his ‘strength of character.’ Optimus himself had admitted he still thought that the Matrix had mystical leader-identifying-abilities.

But Alpha Trion, that old relic, would have known better, and he would have been desperate to find someone to shove the bauble in—possibly sentencing them to a quick death at Megatron’s hands thereby. But the nobles had begun to escape off-planet even before the first assault on Iacon. So he chose someone who no one important would miss if the new frame didn’t take, but who was still passionate and charismatic enough to have a cadre of friends pleading on his behalf. Someone young, inexperienced, biddable, and, most importantly, guaranteed to personally _hate_ Megatron and the Decepticon cause.

Megatron couldn’t fault that really—nothing about being shot through the spark chamber was endearing.

Really, Orion Pax would have been the perfect, no-risk candidate for saving Cybertron’s government and bringing back the status quo. He hadn’t succeeded in that, of course, only in preventing total Decepticon supremacy. Making his way to the bridge, Megatron almost laughed as he imagined Alpha Trion’s reaction to his chosen Prime offering to abolish his own office.

But why had Optimus held back this little detail of his life story? He could have used it to try and put Megatron on the defensive—or even just as added evidence for what he’d been saying. It couldn’t have been to spare Megatron’s feelings...

The mech was more of an enigma than ever.

Megatron had spent millennia studying Optimus Prime. Sometimes his reasons had been practical, and sometimes they had been prurient, but all the same, he’d thought he’d _known_ this mech.

Not that his greatest enemy couldn’t still surprise him… But Megatron knew, almost without thinking about it, the way Optimus Prime would move in battle, where his hands and gun and body would be from moment to moment. On the Quintesson ship, Megatron had thrown himself blind into transformation after transformation, _knowing_ , _sure_ , that Optimus Prime would be there. And he had been.

And Megatron knew the turn of Optimus Prime’s strategic mind. As they’d worked more closely together, he’d found himself running a parallel analysis on all his own decisions, coming to a conclusion and then finding himself thinking ‘ _and Optimus will want to—’_ and being right. He ran through memory after memory from the alliance, watching, as if from a distance, as they made more and more joint decisions without even speaking.

Not every time, of course. There had still been arguments—many, many arguments, really, _endless_ arguments—and Optimus had still been able to surprise him…

Megatron shivered, remembered the very particular surprise that had gotten him into this ridiculous situation. It had been so mortifying, that moment when Optimus Prime had suddenly appeared in the door of his berthroom, but Optimus hadn’t reacted according to his expectations at all.

Surprise was what had kept them both alive, before the alliance. Strength and power and just enough creativity, just enough of the _unexpected_ in their fights, that knowing his fighting style hadn’t spelled death for the Prime.

So often—so, so often in their alliance Optimus had prioritized something Megatron had never expected. Had cared about something Megatron had never expected he would. Had treated Megatron’s _people_ better than he had ever expected he would when he’d agreed to this arrangement. He’d assumed that had been a practical thing, that Optimus Prime had been keeping the peace for the sake of defeating their mutual enemies. He’d assumed that the care and the respect were _fake._

But...what if it wasn’t fake?

What if Optimus Prime had been telling the truth about that too?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Entangledwood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eryn/pseuds/entangledwood) and [RHplus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RHplus/works) were extremely helpful for getting this chapter where I wanted it to be!

**Author's Note:**

> All feedback cherished. [Find me on twitter](http://www.twitter.com/perictione1)!


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